July retail sales fall, highlighting rocky recovery
Decline was led by drop in spending on homes and autos
Retail sales dropped in July, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday, a sign that consumer spending was hampered amid an uneven economic recovery from pandemicinduced restrictions.
The 1.1 percent decline in sales last month, led by a fall in spending on homes and cars, followed an increase in spending in June and was a bigger drop than economists had expected.
The increase in coronavirus cases caused by a surge in the delta variant has not affected spending yet. Sales at restaurants and bars increased as consumers continued to dine outdoors.
The decline in sales could signal a slowdown in the broader economic recovery. Consumer confidence tumbled more than 13 percent in early August from July, according to preliminary results from the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index.
Inflation is also weighing on the data, as consumers expect rising prices as the economy navigates the ups and downs of a shaky rebound, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported last week.
“Even though COVID-19 is playing its role in making consumers less reluctant to spend, a big factor is prices,” said Beth Ann Bovino, the U.S. chief economist at S&P Global.
Cars and auto parts
Sales of cars and auto parts were down 2 percent in July, as the prices of used and new cars continued to climb amid higher demand and lower supply of vehicles.
A global shortage of computer chips has slowed car and truck production in recent months. The production of vehicles and parts rose 11.2 percent in July, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday, but was still 3 percent below January’s levels.
Excluding cars and car parts, retail sales fell 0.4 percent in July.
The semiconductor shortage continues to weigh down the automotive industry despite the rise in prices, which increased by 5.4 percent last month compared with a year earlier, the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index showed last week.
“Consumers hit their limit in terms of the prices of cars,” Bovino said.
Home furnishings
Sales of furniture, sporting goods and building materials declined. The fall came as home prices continued to rise. The median price hit a record $363,300 in June, 23.4 percent higher than in the same month last year.
Home Depot reported Tuesday that transactions fell to $481.7 million in the three months ended
Aug. 1, a 6 percent decrease from the same period last year.
Also potentially weighing on spending, economists have said, is the end of pandemic-related unemployment benefits by about two dozen states.
E-commerce
July’s spending numbers also likely reflected dampened e-commerce sales, because Amazon’s Prime Day promotions took place in June this year instead of July. Credit card spending declined 1.3 percent in July from June, a drop that analysts at Bank of America attributed last week to a fall in online spending.
Sales at nonstore retailers, which include e-commerce businesses, fell 3 percent in July, the Commerce Department said. Sales are shifting month to month as the economy’s unsteady reopening continues.
“It is possible that if the COVID surge continues, we will see a rotation back from people spending outside to spending online,” said Joseph Song, a senior U.S. economist at Bank of America.
Restaurants and bars
The retail sales report came amid concerns that consumers are rethinking their return to in-person shopping and dining as cities and states are forced to slow reopening plans. Still, sales of clothing and clothing accessories, as well as spending at restaurants and bars, were up about 3 percent.
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