US personal incomes tumbled 1.3 percent in June, more than forecast and the biggest drop in four years, signaling that consumer spending will take time to recover.

The decline partly reflected the unwinding of one-time transfer payments from the Obama administration's stimulus plan, which boosted incomes 1.3 percent in May, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Spending rose 0.4 percent in June as prices climbed. Adjusted for inflation, purchases fell 0.1 percent, the report showed.

"We don't see the consumer coming back strongly," Nigel Gault, chief US economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts, said before the report. Americans "are still nervous. They know their personal finances will be stretched."