{"id":10244,"date":"2026-07-19T05:00:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T00:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=10244"},"modified":"2026-07-19T05:00:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T00:00:04","slug":"americans-keep-spending-while-grumbling-about-the-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=10244","title":{"rendered":"Americans keep spending while &quot;grumbling&quot; about the economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/graphics.axios.com\/hermesv2\/2026-07-16-1120-change-in-retail\/fallbacks\/2026-07-16-1120-change-in-retail-fallback.png\" \/><\/p>\n<div>Data: <a href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.com\/v3\/__https%3A\/\/www.census.gov\/retail\/marts\/www\/marts_current.pdf__;!!Al82Z4c!3ovDVSKF2stDHRAT7-rKdjGxI1xNZCpNUqzs_i2mfC0fVJEjT6z9fMZG__T9RUZfYUEmNk_FG2JFe3RCLVE$\" target=\"_blank\">U.S. Census Bureau<\/a>; Chart: Courtenay Brown\/Axios<\/div>\n<p>The list of headwinds facing American consumers keeps getting longer. Yet their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/05\/28\/consumer-spending-income-pce\" target=\"_blank\">willingness to spend<\/a> has not yet cracked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters: <\/strong>Economists feared that the Middle East-driven jump in gasoline prices would dent consumer spending. Instead, a still-stable labor market and rising household wealth appear to have given consumers enough cushion to keep spending.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<ul>\n<li>For Federal Reserve officials, resilient consumer demand is both encouraging and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/06\/25\/inflation-consumer-spending-interest-rates\" target=\"_blank\">challenging<\/a>: It keeps the economy growing while making it harder to judge how quickly inflation can ease.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What&#8217;s new: <\/strong>Retail sales rose 0.2% in June, the fifth straight monthly increase, after May was revised up to a robust 1%.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>That headline understates last month&#8217;s momentum: Sales excluding gasoline stations climbed 0.7% as lower gasoline prices helped drive a 5.3% drop in gasoline-station receipts, while spending at auto dealers jumped almost 2%. (The data is not adjusted for inflation.)<\/li>\n<li>E-commerce retail spending rose about 2%, likely reflecting Amazon&#8217;s earlier-than-usual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/06\/02\/amazon-prime-day-2026-dates-grocery-push\" target=\"_blank\">Prime Day promotions<\/a>. Sporting goods retailers gained 1.3% and electronics stores rose 0.8%.<\/li>\n<li>Restaurant and bar sales edged up just 0.1% nationally, showing no obvious World Cup surge in the aggregate data. Any lift from the later knockout rounds and final would land in July.<\/li>\n<li>Grocery sales fell 0.4%, while spending at clothing stores declined 0.3% and health and personal care retail shopping dropped 0.8% from May.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What they&#8217;re saying: <\/strong>&#8220;In the face of the rise in gasoline prices (though moderating in June), and real wages that are no longer growing, nominal retail sales were pretty good,&#8221; Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners, wrote in a report. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Yes, part of this is at the cost of a very low savings rate, but the labor market has been better this year than last,&#8221; Boockvar added. <\/li>\n<li>Separate data Thursday morning showed that initial jobless claims fell to 208,000 in the week ended July 11, underscoring historically low layoffs across the economy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Zoom in:<\/strong> The control group \u2014 which excludes autos, gasoline, restaurants and building materials and is closely watched as an input into GDP estimates of goods consumption \u2014 rose a solid 0.5% in June, after upward revisions to the prior two months&#8217; data.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The big picture: <\/strong>Each fresh sign of consumer resilience strengthens some Fed officials&#8217; conviction that the economy no longer needs protection from a slowdown \u2014 and that inflation remains the bigger challenge.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fed governor Lisa Cook <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/newsevents\/speech\/cook20260715a.htm\" target=\"_blank\">said Wednesday<\/a> that &#8220;surprisingly resilient output further reinforces that view,&#8221; adding that the AI buildout that &#8220;does not show signs of slowing&#8221; is keeping upward pressure on broader demand.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What to watch: <\/strong>The disconnect between healthy consumer spending and dreadful sentiment has become a defining feature of the American economy.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;As they have throughout the post-pandemic expansion, consumers are grumbling about the state of the economy in surveys, then turning around to spend openhandedly,&#8221; Fifth Third chief economist Bill Adams wrote in a note. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Data: U.S. Census Bureau; Chart: Courtenay Brown\/Axios The list of headwinds facing American consumers keeps getting longer. Yet their willingness to spend has not yet cracked. Why it matters: Economists feared that the Middle East-driven jump in gasoline prices would dent consumer spending. Instead, a still-stable labor market and rising household wealth appear to have&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/graphics.axios.com\/hermesv2\/2026-07-16-1120-change-in-retail\/fallbacks\/2026-07-16-1120-change-in-retail-fallback.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}