with 'professional' commentary ...
(snip)The charts give us a rather different view of the U.S. retail economy and the long-term behavior of the consumer. The sales numbers are adjusted for population growth and inflation. For the population data I've used the Bureau of Economic Analysis mid-month series available from the St. Louis FRED with a linear extrapolation for the latest month. Inflation is based on the latest Consumer Price Index. April retail sales adjusted accordingly declined 0.2% from March.
Consider: During the past 21 years, the U.S. population has grown by over 22% while the dollar has lost about 39% of its purchasing power to inflation. When we adjust accordingly, the rebound in retail sales from the bottom in April 2009 merely gets us back to the per capita spending of 1999.
Retail sales have been recovering since the trough in 2009. But the "real" consumer economy, adjusted for population growth still in recession territory — 8.2% below its all-time high in January 2006.
Note: For the mathematically inclined, I've included a linear regression and a best-fit polynomial regression. The inflation-adjusted series is chained to the January 1992 dollar when this series began being reported.
As I mentioned at the outset, nominal retail sales rose only 0.5% in April. However, the gasoline sales component jumped 2.7%. Gasoline price increases essentially act as a tax on economic growth: The more we spend on gasoline, the less we have to spend on other goods. With this concept in mind, let's look at the real, population-adjusted retail sales excluding gasoline.
By this analysis, adjusted retail sales ex gasoline dropped 0.5% in April from the previous month and a full 1.0% from the interim high in February.
The Great Recession of the Financial Crisis is behind us, but a close analysis of retail sales suggests that the recovery has been weak and may be showing signs of stalling.(snip)
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