International Paper Co. Chief Executive Officer John Faraci said “weak” U.S. consumer spending is holding back the economy from a more forceful recovery.

Shipments of corrugated packaging, a barometer of U.S. consumer demand for everything from vegetables to refrigerators, are forecast to rise 0.83 percent to 363 billion square feet this year, 7.4 percent less than in 2007, the last full year before the global economic crisis, Faraci said today in an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York.

“We haven’t had the classic economic recovery,” Faraci, 63, said. “It’s not happening because consumer spending is still weak and that’s 70 percent of the U.S. economy.”

An uneven recovery from the deepest recession since the Great Depression and a jobless rate holding above 7 percent for more than four years has made Americans hesitant to open their wallets. Consumer spending has risen 2.1 percent a quarter on average since the most recent recession ended in June 2009, compared with 2.9 percent during the expansion that lasted from November 2001 to December 2007.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told lawmakers in Washington this week that ending the central bank’s record stimulus program prematurely would endanger a recovery hampered by high unemployment and government spending cuts. For all of 2012, the economy expanded 2.2 percent after a 1.8 percent gain in the prior year. Annual growth in the U.S. was as high as 3.5 percent in the last expansion.

Faraci, who has been CEO of Memphis-based International Paper since 2003, said broad-based tax reform for companies and individuals in the U.S. can ultimately lead to increased hiring and a quickening pace of economic expansion by putting more money in consumers’ pockets. The company is the world’s largest producer of cardboard shipping boxes.

“To me, job growth isn’t about ‘gee whiz, businesses be confident, go spend money,’” Faraci said. “Why are we going to spend money if we don’t have any orders?”