By Arasu Kannagi Basil and Nupur Anand

June 9 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ) is keeping a close watch on consumer health as worries about inflation persist, Marianne Lake, CEO of the bank's consumer and community banking division, said on Tuesday.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley U.S. Financials Conference in New York City, Lake said that although U.S. consumers were resilient and spending was still solid, there was an increasingly "small" number of people for whom wage increases were not currently keeping pace with inflation.

"You're not seeing anything right now, but you are being very, very watchful. If inflation were to be higher for longer, this sort of trend of wages keeping up with inflation could be at some risk," Lake said at the investor conference.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said last week that he expects consumer behavior to change in the second half of 2026 if inflation picks up.

U.S. inflation increased at its fastest pace in three years in April as the Iran war drove energy prices higher. Surging price pressures are also eroding household income and threatening to restrain consumer spending and economic growth this year.

Lake said there was also less inbuilt resiliency for any sort of future shocks as cash buffers had normalized from post-pandemic levels.

"While the unemployment is low, demand for labor is a little softer," she said.

Lake also said higher tax refunds and lower tax bills, coinciding with elevated energy prices, had somewhat muted the impact.

"For the lower-income customer, somewhere between 20% and 25% of that incremental money as a result of higher tax refunds has been spent through the first two months of higher energy prices. So time is a big vector here," she said.

Lake said JPMorgan ( JPM ) was also seeing strong demand for its products and expects loan growth in 2026 to be higher than the industry average.

(Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru and Nupur Anand in New York; Editing by Anil D'Silva)