The encouraging September jobs report, which showed unemployment dipping below 6 percent, stole the limelight on Friday, but it is the quiet release of another government report that has presented economists with unexpected fodder for debate.

An article, published in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s Monthly Labor Review, dismissed warnings that stalled incomes, changing demographics and tighter credit could make consumer spending less capable of powering the economy. By examining the relationship between consumer spending and jobs during the Great Recession and into the future, the bureau projected that spend-happy Americans would continue to account for more than 70 percent of the country’s total output and more than 63 percent of the nation’s jobs in coming years.  Read more