The chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway-owned Benjamin Moore said Friday that higher household formations show the U.S. consumer is doing better.
"In the first quarter of this year, there were 1.5 million more households formed and that's on top of Q4, where there were 1.6 million households [formed]. I think it's the first time in 15 years that there has been a back-to-back increase like that in households formations," Michael Searles told CNBC's "Squawk Box."
Searles made his remarks a day before Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders' meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.
Still, Sam Taylor, chief executive of Oriental Trading, a party supply company that is also owned by Warren Buffett's conglomerate, said consumers are still "hesitant."
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"For consumers, what we've seen is a very strong Easter season, and that's because this Easter [season] was two weeks shorter this year. It came on a little bit slow and then picked up at the end and we're actually seeing the same thing with graduation right now," Taylor said.
First-quarter consumer spending rose 1.9 percent after increasing 4.4 percent in the first quarter of 2014.
