WASHINGTON ? Americans’ income rose in December by the most in nine months, a hopeful sign for the economy after a year of weak wage gains. But consumers didn’t spend any more than they had in November.

Americans ended up saving all their additional income.

Economists noted that income rose last month largely because of strong hiring. The economy added 200,000 jobs in December. More jobs mean more income available to spend.

The best hope for the economy is further job gains. On Friday, the government is expected to report another solid month of hiring for January.

Income rose 0.5 percent from November to December, the Commerce Department said Monday. It was the sharpest increase since a similar gain in March.

The flat spending in December followed scant gains of 0.1 percent in both October and November.

For all of 2011, income barely rose. And consumers tapped their savings to spend more.

But in December, Americans boosted their savings. If they continue to save any additional income rather than spend it, the economy could slow. And that could force employers to pull back on hiring.

Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity.

Many economists are holding out hope, though, that continued job gains will mean more spending across the economy.

“The pace of job growth in recent months, while still not satisfactory compared to most past cycles, at least seems sufficient to generate enough income growth to keep consumer spending moving ahead at a modest pace,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR, Inc.

After-tax income adjusted for inflation rose 0.3 percent in December. For the year, inflation-adjusted income rose 0.9 percent. That was just half the rise in 2010.

Inflation-adjusted consumer spending rose just 2.2 percent last year. It was slightly better than the increase in 2010.

Consumer spending was flat in December, even though retail sales rose slightly and retailers reported modest holiday sales.

One reason for the conflicting data is the consumer spending report covers a wider range of goods and services not measured by the retail sales report, such as utilities, airline tickets and hotel rooms.

Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors, also notes that the consumer spending report comes out a few weeks after the retail sale report, so it has more complete data.

Nonetheless, Naroff was encouraged by the large gain in income in December. He said it reflected the solid number of jobs created.

“More jobs created mean more income and more consumer spending,” Naroff said.

Unemployment fell to 8.5 percent last month ? the lowest level in nearly three years ? after a sixth straight month of solid hiring.

Economists predict that 155,000 net jobs were created in January, according to a survey by Factset. Some are even estimating closer to 200,000. The unemployment rate is expected to stay unchanged.

Still, the economy remains weak. The government said Friday that the economy grew at an annual rate of 1.7 percent last year ? roughly half the growth of 2010.

Overall growth last quarter ? and for all of last year ? was slowed by the sharpest cuts in annual government spending in four decades. And many people are reluctant to spend more or buy homes. Many employers remain hesitant to hire, even though job growth has strengthened.

The outlook for 2012 is slightly better. The Federal Reserve has estimated economic growth of roughly 2.5 percent for the year, despite abundant risk factors: federal spending cuts, weak pay increases, cautious consumers and the risk of a European recession.

The savings rate increased to 4 percent of after-tax incomes in December, up from 3.5 percent in November.

For the year, the savings rate dipped to 4.4 percent from 5.3 percent in 2010. The savings rate had fallen to 1.5 percent in 2005, reflecting a housing boom that made people feel like spending more and saving less.

The December report showed that prices tied to consumer spending edged up 0.1 percent in December and were up 2.4 percent compared to a year ago. This is the preferred inflation measure for the Federal Reserve.

The Fed last week established an annual inflation target of 2 percent.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_bi_ge/us_consumer_spending

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Newt Gingrich may have a women voter problem in Florida.?Despite public endorsements from Sarah Palin and other conservative women, recent polling shows he’s less popular among women.

Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary despite widespread publicity about his messy divorces and multiple marriages. Sarah Palin and some other conservative women have publicly supported the former House speaker, saying that in their view he?s the true grassroots tea party champion in the race.

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On Sunday New York Times columnist Gail Collins went so far as to say that the former Speaker could go down in history as the politician who proved that voters don?t care about the dalliances of their elected officials.

But Mr. Gingrich may still have a problem with female voters. In Florida in particular, he?s less popular among women than he is among men. That gender gap is contributing to the sudden reemergence of Mitt Romney as the favorite for Tuesday?s Florida primary.

In a new NBC/Marist poll, for instance, Gingrich loses to Mr. Romney among women by a wide 47 to 26 percent. He?s behind among men as well, but by a smaller 38 to 29 percent margin.

A new Mason/Dixon survey for a number of Florida news outlets showed Gingrich and Romney virtually tied among men. But among women Gingrich again trailed, by 46 to 27 percent.

Similarly, Public Policy Polling?s overnight tracking results showed the two Florida front-runners tied among males, but Romney leading among women by a whopping 13 points, 43 to 30 percent.

?Mitt Romney is holding steady in our Florida polling,? said Dean Debnam, PPP president, in a Monday press release. ?It looks like the main suspense in the state is whether he?ll win by single digits or double digits.?

It?s unclear whether women are reacting against Gingrich?s marital history, his combative nature, or his attempt to position himself as the conservative alternative to, in Gingrich?s words, a ?Massachusetts moderate.? But notably, the PPP survey breakdown shows that almost equal percentages of male and female respondents rated themselves as either very or somewhat conservative. So it is not the case that women are disproportionately moderate, and thus more likely to support Romney.

Ms. Palin?s support of Gingrich is an interesting test case. In a statement on her Facebook page, she notes that Gingrich is ?an imperfect vessel? for tea party support, but argues that the GOP establishment is simply carpet-bombing him in its attempt to keep control of the party and keep tea partyers down.

?The challenge of this election is not simply to replace President Obama. The real challenge is who and what we will replace him with. It?s not enough to just change up the uniform,? wrote Palin in her Facebook note.

But as of Monday morning the wall section of the chief Mama Grizzly?s Facebook entry was full of comments from her followers (of both genders) discussing whether Gingrich was in fact the right choice for the tea party, with many expressing discontent with Palin?s choice.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/AdS6LSqBnn8/Does-Newt-Gingrich-have-a-women-voter-problem

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JOHANNESBURG ? Young people tweeting from BlackBerrys and iPhones are driving the growth of Twitter in Africa, with South Africans by far the most vociferous, according to new research published Thursday.

Kenya-based Portland Communications and Tweetminster published findings indicating Twitter in Africa is widely used for social conversation and is fast becoming an important source of information. More than 80 percent of those polled said they mainly used it for communicating with friends, 68 percent said they use it to monitor news and 22 percent to search for jobs, the companies said.

The research analyzed more than 11.5 million geographically pinpointed tweets originating on the continent during the last three months of 2011. That was complemented by a survey of 500 of Africa’s most active tweeters.

South Africans, with the continent’s biggest economy, were the most prolific with over twice as many tweets at 5,030,226 than the next most active country of Kenya with 2,476,800 tweets. Surprisingly, Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, had only 1,646,212 tweets from its more than 160 million people. It was followed by Egypt with 1,214,062 and Morocco with 745,620 tweets.

African tweeters are young, averaging 20 to 29 years, compared to 39 worldwide, the report said. And some 57 percent of analyzed tweets were sent from mobile phones, mainly BlackBerrys and iPhones.

The researchers noted how few African business and political leaders were joining Africa’s burgeoning Twittersphere.

“With some notable exceptions, we found that business and political leaders were largely absent from the debates playing out on Twitter across the continent,” they said. “As Twitter lifts off in Africa, governments, businesses and development agencies can really no longer afford to stay out of a new space where dialogue will increasingly be taking place.”

Among noted Twitter users are President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Kagame got into an infamous Twitterspat last year with journalist Ian Birrell of The Guardian of London, with the two trading tweets about human rights and repression in the central African nation. The cyber-conversation first was joined by Kagame’s foreign minister, and then went global.

While Kenyan soldiers and fighters of an extremist Somali Islamist group have been fighting each other, their spokesman have taken the battle onto Twitter, with taunts, accusations and insults being directly traded in a rare engagement on the Internet.

On Thursday, South Africa’s new Corruption Watch campaign launched, including a Twitter account where tweeters encouraged each other to make it “the No. 1 followed Twitter account in South Africa.”

The research, called “How Africa Tweets,” found Twitter is helping form new links within Africa. The majority of those surveyed said at least half of the Twitter accounts they followed were based on the continent.

Beatrice Karanja, head of Portland Nairobi, said: “We saw the pivotal role of Twitter in the events in North Africa last year, but it is clear that Africa’s Twitter revolution is really just beginning.”

—

Online:

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame: http://twitter.com/paulkagame

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga: http://twitter.com/odinga_raila

Kenyan military spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir: http://twitter.com/Major_chirchir

Corruption Watch: http://twitter.com/Corruption_SA

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_hi_te/af_how_africa_tweets

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