Gulp: Retail sales fall 1.0% in March

Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for March 2023, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $691.7 billion, down 1.0 percent (±0.5 percent) from the previous month, but up 2.9 percent (±0.7 percent) above March 2022. Total sales for the January 2023 through March 2023 period were up 5.4 percent (±0.4 percent) from the same period a year ago. The January 2023 to February 2023 percent change was revised from down 0.4 percent (±0.5 percent)* to down 0.2 percent (±0.1 percent).

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Retail trade sales were down 1.2 percent (±0.5 percent) from February 2023, but up 1.5 percent (±0.5 percent) above last year. Nonstore retailers were up 12.3 percent (±1.2 percent) from last year, while food services and drinking places were up 13.0 percent (±2.6 percent) from March 2022.

[This is not adjusted for inflation, either. That’s a significant drop at a time when we’re already seeing some signals for a recession. The year-on-year number is positive, but inflation over the same period was 5% year-on-year, which means that’s also negative in real dollars. We now have two months of decline in retail, and that is not a good signal for a soft landing on inflation — the rate of which may have slowed recently but is still far over the normal target of 2%. — Ed]

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