{"id":45187,"date":"2026-08-14T21:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45187"},"modified":"2026-08-14T21:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:22:13","slug":"retail-sales-slump-in-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45187","title":{"rendered":"Retail sales slump in July"},"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\/2026-08-14-939-u-s-retail-sales\/fallbacks\/2026-08-14-939-u-s-retail-sales-fallback.png\" \/><\/p>\n<div>Data: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/retail\/sales.html\" target=\"_blank\">Census Bureau<\/a>; Chart: Neil Irwin\/Axios<\/div>\n<p>American consumers have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/07\/16\/retail-sales-consumer-spending-june\" target=\"_blank\">powered the economy<\/a> forward this year. In July, they took a breather.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters: <\/strong>While the underlying trend in consumer demand appears solid, retail sales hit an air pocket last month, suggesting a bumpier path ahead for overall growth.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Combined with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/08\/07\/july-jobs-report-employment-losses\" target=\"_blank\">weak jobs report<\/a> last week and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/08\/12\/cpi-july-inflation-iran-trump\" target=\"_blank\">two<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/08\/13\/inflation-july-ppi\" target=\"_blank\">subdued<\/a> inflation readings this week, it points to the Federal Reserve having room to be patient on potential interest rate increases this fall.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p><strong>Driving the news: <\/strong>Retail sales fell 0.6% in July, the weakest performance in more than a year and well below the 0.1% gain analysts expected.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Excluding gas stations and auto dealers, there was still a 0.3% decline in sales, meaning that the weakness was evident even apart from those volatile categories.<\/li>\n<li>Auto dealers&#8217; sales were down 2%, gasoline stations&#8217; sales fell 0.9%, and electronic and appliance store sales declined 0.5%.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Of note: <\/strong>Some one-off shifts pulled the numbers downward. Amazon held its Prime Day discounting event earlier this year than last, helping explain a 2.2% drop in online sales.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Moreover, most World Cup games took place in June, so the associated spending would have the mechanical effect of pushing retail sales upward in early summer and creating a misleading decline in July.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Yes, but: <\/strong>The numbers were soft even accounting for those factors, giving some pause as to how robust consumer spending will be in the second half of the year.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Growth in Personal Consumption Expenditures contributed a whopping 2.1 percentage points to overall GDP growth in the second quarter, even as other sectors combined to subtract from GDP.<\/li>\n<li>The retail sales control group that feeds directly into GDP calculations fell 0.4% in July, versus a 0.3% gain that analysts forecast, and previously reported gains for May and June were revised downward.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What they&#8217;re saying:<\/strong> &#8220;The weaker July retail sales report shows that consumers took a breather last month after an ebullient burst of spending in the first half of the year,&#8221; Nationwide chief economist Kathy Bostjancic wrote in a note.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;The contraction in core retail control spending last month, following downward revisions to the prior two months, translates into a bit less momentum for real consumer spending starting Q3 than previously expected.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Reality check: <\/strong>The stock market is booming, gasoline prices are well off their recent highs, and the unemployment rate is low. There is no reason to expect broader consumer spending to experience a meaningful pullback.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>But the July retail numbers suggest there&#8217;s no major acceleration taking place, either.<\/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: Census Bureau; Chart: Neil Irwin\/Axios American consumers have powered the economy forward this year. In July, they took a breather. Why it matters: While the underlying trend in consumer demand appears solid, retail sales hit an air pocket last month, suggesting a bumpier path ahead for overall growth. Combined with a weak jobs report&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/graphics.axios.com\/hermesv2\/2026-08-14-939-u-s-retail-sales\/fallbacks\/2026-08-14-939-u-s-retail-sales-fallback.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45187","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\/45187","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=45187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}