The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index climbed to minus 44.8 in the week ended Dec. 31, the best reading since mid-July, from minus 47.5 the prior week.
Applications for jobless benefits decreased by 15,000 last week to 372,000, according to Labor Department figures. Over the past four weeks the average number of jobless claims dropped to the lowest level since June 2008.
Adding Workers
Companies added 1.64 million employees in 2011, the best year for the American worker since 2006, after a 940,000 increase in 2010. Even with the gains, little headway has been made in recovering the 8.75 million jobs lost as a result of the recession that ended in June 2009.
Employment will pick up this year, as the economy strengthens and productivity growth wanes, said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. He forecasts that payrolls will rise 2.6 million.
The U.S. probably expanded at a 3.6 percent rate during the fourth quarter, according to Macroeconomic Advisers. That would be the fastest since the second quarter of 2010 and double the third quarter's 1.8 percent. The St. Louis-based forecasting company sees growth slowing to 2 percent in the current quarter as a recession in the euro area begins to take a bigger toll on the U.S.
"The tide is beginning to come back in," James Glassman, senior economist at JP Morgan Chase & Co. in New York, said in a radio interview on "Bloomberg Surveillance" with Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt. "We've got a long way to go. This is all positive, though, that we're actually moving forward, and that's an important trend."