Consumer spending, a major force in the U.S. economy, may fall further as the recession wears on, a leading economist said Thursday.

"We're in a deep slide. This is what a bad recession looks like," University of Maryland professor Peter Morici, a former International Trade Commission economist, told the Washington Post.

Consumer expenditures dropped 1 percent in October, the Commerce Department said, the largest monthly fall in 17 years, the Post reported Thursday.

Even with home prices falling 16.6 percent in the third quarter compared with the same quarter in 2007, tighter credit and rising unemployment will continue to curdle spending.

"We definitely expect home prices to decline further not just because of foreclosures but because there is still a lot of imbalance in the market ... because of excess supply," said Orawin Velz, an economist with the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Commodity prices have dropped, but "what consumers are not spending on gas, they are not taking to the mall," Morici said.

"They are not spending it on a car or home improvement, but to rebuild their savings," he said.