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While the economic package will take time to have an impact, and unemployment is likely to keep rising for months, labor decline will start returning the U.S. toward growth by the end of the year, economists said.

“Economic activity begins to tick up in third quarter of 2009, but the biggest effect of the stimulus bill is in 2010,” said Yale University economist Ray Fair, who has modeled on his Web site the effects of the legislation Congress is negotiating this week.

Fair and other economists say the first evidence that the plan is working should be visible in consumer spending and retail sales, which they expect will stop declining around mid-year. The next sign may come in business investment, as companies grow more confident about a pick-up in sales. The final signal of success would be a turnaround in a labor market that has lost 3.6 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007.