The government's economic stimulus program begins Monday, and William Pearson of Los Angeles is ready to receive his $600 tax rebate — and hoard it.

"I'm too afraid to spend it," Pearson, 63, said last week. "No one knows where gas or food is going to go, and I'm uncertain about making it through the summer."

The Treasury Department will begin sending rebates via electronic direct deposit Monday, and the Internal Revenue Service will start mailing checks May 9. President Bush said the $110 billion that 130 million households should receive by summer would help offset high gasoline and food prices and "give our economy a boost to help us pull out of the economic slowdown."

Pearson, a bachelor who makes $45,000 a year as a groundskeeper for an office building, said he was not so sure about that. He will save rather than spend his $600 rebate, which is what recent public opinion polls found most Americans plan to do.

"For the trouble we're in, it's a petty amount," Pearson said. "If we could see the economy leveling off in the future, we might spend it, but we're trying to be realists. This money looks like something everyone's going to have to hold on to."

Nearly 7.7 million households are expected to receive money this week, and 130 million by summer. Individuals with a taxable income of less than $75,000 and couples with less than $150,000 are eligible for up to $600 per person, $1,200 per couple and $300 per child.

The rules exclude Floyd Henderson, 62, a Pasadena, Calif., electrician who makes about $82,000.

"I think it's unfair — everyone should be getting it," he said. And if he were to receive a rebate? "I'm definitely not in a spending mood. I would sit on it, or use it to pay my bills."

A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found that 34 percent of eligible taxpayers were keen to use their rebates to wipe out debt, and that 31 percent wanted to bolster their savings. Only 18 percent of respondents said they planned to spend the money.

Booming fuel and food prices and shriveling incomes and home values have pushed consumer confidence to a quarter-century low, according to a survey by Reuters and the University of Michigan. It found that 30 percent of people would buy things with their rebates.