Washington ? Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday that the recession is “very likely over,” offering his most explicit endorsement so far of the view, increasingly widespread among economists, that a recovery is under way.

Even as he warned that the expansion could prove lackluster, new data released Tuesday provided evidence that economy was turning around, showing that Americans returned to stores in August and increased their spending at the highest rate in three years.

With consumers flooding auto dealerships to take advantage of the Cash for Clunkers program, total retail sales rose 2.7 percent over the previous month, the Commerce Department said. What surprised analysts was that even excluding auto sales and gasoline, retail sales rose a solid 0.7 percent.

That eased fears, shared by many economists, that the bump in auto sales would come at the expense of spending on other goods and services. In August, at least, people did not scrimp on other purchases even while buying new automobiles.

Bernanke, meanwhile, acknowledged what a growing chorus of analysts has concluded: That the economy bottomed out this summer and is now growing, at least as measured by gross domestic product. But he also described continued weakness in the job market.

“It’s still going to feel like a very weak economy for some time,” he said.