• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, August 14, 2013

Observers had expected Macy’s second-quarter results to generate some of the industry’s healthiest headlines. Instead, the chain’s sales actually declined, with company execs saying consumers’ reluctance to spend caught them off guard.

The Cincinnati-based retailer says sales in the quarter slid 1% to $6.01 billion. On a comparable-store basis, sales also receded 1%.

“Second quarter sales performance was softer than anticipated,” says Terry J. Lundgren, Macy’s, Inc. chairman and CEO, in its release, “and we are disappointed with the results. Our performance in the period, in part, reflects consumers’ continuing uncertainty about spending on discretionary items in the current economic environment. After a cool spring, we have taken appropriate markdowns and customers are responding favorably.”

The company, which says it is intensifying second-half marketing spending as a result of the softer sales, adds that it is encouraged by its early take on back-to-school sales as well as stronger spending in women’s ready-to-wear -- a category that has lagged for a few years. And sales at its Bloomingdale’s unit have rebounded.

Net income for the quarter rose from $279 million to $281 million.

In the second half, it expects comparable sales in in the range of 3 to 4%, and a full-year gain of 2 to 3%.

But while Macy’s may be finding its customers uncertain, there are indications that consumers are on more solid footing than they have been in seven years. The Federal Reserve Bank just released its latest report on national household debt, and says that it declined by $78 billion last quarter, to its lowest levels since 2006.

The percentage of those who are delinquent on their bills for 90 day or more also fell, declining to 5.7% from 6.1% in the first quarter -- also the lowest level since 2006.