Tag Archives: Retail sales

April retail sales “disappoint,” but maintain almost all of March’s surge [Note: I’ll comment on industrial production in a separate post later]At first glance, April’s retail sales report looks like another Big Miss. Nominally (blue) sales increased less than 0.1% (rounded to unchanged). Adjusted for inflation (red), they declined -0.7%: But the important point is that the big jump in March didn’t get taken back.  As I wrote last month:...

Why March’s big jump in real retail sales augurs well for big employment gains through summer Yesterday I wrote that the steep decline in new jobless claims in the past 4 weeks likely presages another big monthly employment gain, on the order of 1 million or more jobs. Another very big positive for the next few months in employment is the massive, stimulus-fueled jump in retail sales. As I have pointed out many times, real retail sales (blue...