Record drop in U.S. consumer spending as Americans stay home

With U.S. stores shuttered and many Americans stuck at home, U.S. consumer spending plunged by a record 13.6% in April. That's the biggest drop since the government began tracking that data in 1959, and that decline was even deeper than economists had forecast.

Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, and that plunge supports expectations that the economy could shrink in the second quarter at its steepest pace since the Great Depression.

Spending on healthcare dropped as dental offices closed and hospitals put off elective surgeries. Americans spent less less at restaurants and on hotels.

The drop comes despite a surge in personal income. Stimulus checks that the government issued lifted incomes 10.5% last month, rebounding from a drop of over 2% in March when people began to stay at home.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is set to speak in a public webcast Friday, and Wall Street is watching closely to see if he have the Fed restart large-scale purchases of bonds to boost the economy.

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