"In the face of 10 percent unemployment and persistent housing woes, the American consumer has single-handedly picked himself off the mat, brushed his troubles off and strapped the U.S. economy on his back,” Craig R. Johnson, the president of the consulting firm Customer Growth Partners, wrote in an e-mail. Analysts offered several theories for the rebound in spending while the unemployment rate remained stubbornly high. Stocks have soared to their highest levels in more than two years, giving those with higher incomes greater freedom to spend. Luxury stores like Tiffany and Saks Fifth Avenue, for example, have been posting big sales increases. Pent-up demand is also showing up among middle-income shoppers: in government surveys, consumers have been expressing rising confidence for the last five months. The luxury segment started heating up in late summer, said Joel Bines, a director in the global retail practice at AlixPartners. “That trickled down to the upper- to midtier consumer, and then the midtier consumer,” he said. Once the luxury market stabilized, confidence seems to have spread, “in the media, at work, with your friends,” he said."