Solid U.S. retail sales point to firming economic recovery

Jack Reed can see the recovery taking hold at his family's 109-year-old clothing store in Tupelo, Mississippi, with sales buoyed in part by the paychecks tied to a Toyota plant up the road and rising confidence that the jobs are here to stay.

As retailers nationwide reported a brisk jump in November sales and optimism about the holiday season, Reed said on Thursday that the gears of the U.S. economy seemed to have finally meshed.

"There is just less fear from people who feel like they might lose their jobs ... Our shoppers seem more confident than they did a year ago," said Reed, 63, whose chain of four stores clocked a roughly 10 percent jump in sales from Thanksgiving to this week, compared to the year before.