Lower gas prices have businesses banking on better sales and profits, but a local bank survey says consumers are taking that savings to the bank instead.

“With six months of lower gas prices, we expected to see additional consumer spending, but we’re not,” PNC Bank Economist Kurt Rankin said in a recent Pennsylvania Business Daily report. “For now, consumers are banking the savings in case of another economic downturn.”

That kind of behavior will slow down a state economy that already lags behind the national average.

“Without consumer spending, that means less job creation,” he said. “Savings aren’t bad, but it does mean the economy will grow slower.”

Meanwhile, 94 percent of the survey’s responding small business owners plan to maintain or grow their full-time employment bases, and a post-recession record 70 percent are optimistic about the national economy.

Read more about the state’s lower-than-average unemployment and local sales and profit expectations from PNC’s survey in the Pennsylvania Business Daily here.