In September, retail sales rose 0.4 percent, up 0.3 percent inflation adjusted. Here’s where consumer spent their money.
According to the Census Department Advance Estimate, retail sales rose 0.4 percent in September.
Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for September 2024, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $714.4 billion, an increase of 0.4 percent (±0.5 percent) from the previous month, and up 1.7 percent (±0.5 percent) from September 2023. Total sales for the July 2024 through September 2024 period were up 2.3 percent (±0.5 percent) from the same period a year ago.
The key line above is “adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes.”
Those are nominal numbers, not adjusted for inflation. My charts below show both.
Month-Over-Month Nominal Details
- Retail Sales: +0.4%
- Excluding Motor Vehicles and Gasoline: +0.7%
- Motor Vehicles: +0.0%
- Food Stores: +1.0%
- Nonstore Merchants (e.g. Amazon): +0.4%
- Gas Stations: -2.9%
Real vs Nominal Retail Sales Percent Change From Month Ago
Real vs Nominal Advance Retail Sales in Millions of Dollars
Real Retail Sales Detail – Millions of Dollars
As you can see, inflation-adjusted retail sales have gone nowhere.
Real vs Nominal Retail Sales Since 1992
Real Retail Sales Since 1992
The Cost of Food Increased 0.4 Percent in Sept
On October 10, I noted The Cost of Food Increased 0.4 Percent in Sept, What’s in Your Basket?
Food Away from Home vs Food at Home Month-Over-Month
- In the prior 19 months, the monthly price of food fell 3 months, was unchanged 6 months, rose 0.1 percent 5 times, rose 0.2 percent 3 times, and more than 0.2 percent only twice.
- That string of good news for food at home ended in September with a 0.4 percent jump.
- In the prior 19 months, food away from home rose at least 0.4 percent on eleven occasions, and was never negative or zero.
Also see CPI Good News on Shelter and Energy But Food Jumps
The vaunted US consumer is little more than a mirage of inflation. The basket of consumer spending shifts according to prices.
Inflation continues to be the dragon looking for a St. George. When a hero who can slay the beast is found, they will win the November election. The economy and immigration are the two pillars of worry for the avg voter. Tough talk alone won’t slay that beast, get moving!
The IPPC, MoM Report that is referenced, certainly helps to explain a lot in the Automobile Manufacturing and Parts. So those two basically combine for Zero Growth in 2024 to date. Industrial Production and Manufacturing pretty much mirror those statistics.
Hmm.. Unions, amongst many others, chasing raises because they are so busy, and under staffed? They Want/Demand longer term contracts worked out, to cement their pay in place? Why would anybody get a long term contract, with wage increases and extended lengths, given to them?
Its obvious why Management Themselves would, but the Workers are looking at nearly certain Layoffs. How many all depends on how much they cripple themselves by the Many for the Few so to speak… it will be far too many IMO and especially when they could have saved them all.
This also helps explain the “EV Roll Out Debacle” and hence the Brakes being applied immediately, it has almost appeared. Have they pushed the “Mandates” out to 2050 yet, by chance? That’s going to be an extremely costly blunder, and many will feel it personally, very hard!
There is a proper place, and time for things to be introduced, but definitely not until it’s ready to be rolled out. Our Countries Leaders left out Infrastructure, Desire, Raw Material Availability, and True Cost, to name just a few. Now was not, and is not the time for that. Now is the time to plan and get into place ALL the things left out Before “The Roll Out” so we can begin to prepare for a proper roll out. We shall see…
auto ownership is a true luxury. try walking. saves on gasoline……..and those fat phucks might even become a little healthier.
Yeah, it’s called survival.
I suspect if you deflate by PCE ex housing or CPI ex housing, you get a slightly different conclusion – most likely a shallow upward drift. Weak, but not a mirage.
Either way, not robust (which is the broader point).
How much is attributed to the anticipated dock strike and pre-buying to avoid shortages?
It was most certainly played up that way by the MSM (Modern Day Brownshirts), but you need money to pre-buy.
You have the immigrants here illegally Housed, Fed, Medical Care, Education, Transportation, monthly checks, and so much more.
Then you have the American Citizens Homeless, Hungry, Cold, could use some Healthcare, but turned away, because of no insurance (i.e. Taxpayer Subsidy) to pay the bill, not learning due to overcrowding and they don’t speak the language that gets the limited help available, many cars have been repossessed, no Monthly z checks as they don’t qualify as Citizens until they get much older, only young migrants get special help and care, Got fare? Then Walk!!
The Citizens WILL FIGURE this out eventually…
The source of much of the PRICE escalation of groceries, gasoline and all consumer goods is the price of Diesel fuel that the truckers hauling all the goods to the retailers MUST PASS ON.
Thanks to the Ignoramus Demented Fool Biden saying publicly on camera that was going to ELIMINATE Hydrocarbon fuel! His stupid actions only manager to double the price.
Declining since 2022. About the same price as in 2012-2014. Probably not a big driver of costs the past 24 months.
(Edit: Drive a diesel. Enjoying these prices lately.)
Yep, once companies find a reason to raise prices they only come down through competition pressures and that takes years. We also have the goverment wacko’s forcing increased wages causing havoc. I guess it’s to much money supply.
Soon, they’ll be spending more for health care. Federal Blue Cross health care premiums are going up 17-19% for next year.
The standard Blue Cross family plan now has a total cost of $29,000 for federal employees. Bat sh** crazy high prices for health and dental care nowadays.
They haven’t yet announced what the 2025 Medicare premiums will be. How much of that 2.5% SS COLA will be erased?
All of it. False teeth for the win
Edit: exact cost is $29,610.88 per year. Employee share is $11,040.90 per year or $212.33 per week. Don’t forget all the deductibles, co-pays and exclusions keep going up as well.
Thank you replying and that info. I am surprised the employees are paying that much.
Hmmm, all I heard was that they were going to up your COLA,
$29,000 cost for federal employees. Yeah but what are they actually paying?
I see teachers where the cost of the policy for family is over 32,000 but they only pay 6,000. So I tell them to nicely shut up and dont complain. Thats a 26K annual job benefit.
Are you telling me Federal employees pay 100%??? I highly doubt that.
Let me know, maybe I am wrong???
And this is 1 of the major reasons why nothing ever progresses on how to fix are so fucked up and out of control health care , health insurance, health coverage whatever the hell we want to call it because people have no idea of the true “cost” of their policy.
I see NYS employees bitch and moan that their cost went up $65 for a month when they still have a policy that the total cost is over 32K but they are only paying 6K
And these same people say I dont know what ever one is complaining about with Obamacare and other health insurance because they dont understand that some people actually pay 26k to 30k out if their own pocket instead of the person paying 6k but gets a 32K policy
Rip the whole fucking system up and start over again
To clarify: employee pays $11,040.90 and the employer (Fed. Gov’t) pays $18,569.98 for a total cost of $29,610.88 per year.
obamacare was really “medicaide for all” NOT medicare for all. if you are in the right towns and states, and keep your taxable income zero or very low, it’s stupendously great health coverage. keeping taxable income near zero is simple if one had read the instructions(the us tax code) before embarking on one’s life journey in the working world of adulthood. my taxation class freshman year was the eye opener that payed off.
Since mid 2021 the real and advance retail sale are down. In nominal terms retail sale made a new all time high. Consumers spend more money on food. Food stores sales are up, after nonstop plunging for two years, bc the new immigrants, who are invisible to BLS, have to eat every day.
79% say the country is headed in the wrong direction. “But lets turn the page with Harris.”
“79% say the country is headed in the wrong direction.”
…And the remaining 21%, are so darned clueless they can’t even figure something THAT obvious out…..
And: There IS NO; as in NONE even theoretically possible; turning of any page which neither will nor can happen, while retaining any part of The Fed, nor any of the pathologies which have grown up around it. You can’t turn the page on pure, kleptocratic theft, without first getting rid of stickup men, burglars and robbers. That is simply not possible. No matter what dumb people insist on telling even dumber ones, on TeeVee.
More succinctly — Turning the page still means one is reading the same book. Continuing the current administration or reverting to a variation of the previous one won’t demonstrably change anything on this subject.
Left wing Right wing, same bird. (G. Moore, bio unknown) ☮️✝️
That’s good for Trump, but the Dow made a new all time high.
Yes and why is it making a new high. You answered your own statement
The stock markets have to go up, because other than sideways, there is nowhere else to go BUT down. and once that starts, it’ll be hard to stop.
My neighbor has a Harris/and the other Ahole sign out and under it it says
“Protect our freedoms”??
Whose???
The Biden administration announced Thursday that it was forgiving another $4.5 billion in student debt for more than 60,000 borrowers.
Consumption was rising after rent jubilee and money for u and me. It might jumpstart zoomers and millennials after writing off student loans debt from $1.775T in Q2 2023 to $1.745, by $30B, a trifle,charging dbl interest rates, in order to collect gov income from wealthy students families.
Starbucks rejoices.
population of US April 1 2020 331,449,281 source US Census basis
Population of US 2024 341,814,420 source Macro trends
Somewhere around 10 million increase which would not include illegals.
All eating from the same Pie size real numbers.
That is going backwards by my math.
No worries it’s all about coconuts.
Cackles Bobblehead and Elmer Fudd to the rescue
Macro trends builds off of census data which includes illegals, although 2020 due to some decisions at Census likely undercounted them (along with US born homeless). While probably undercounted, it does include undocumented immigrants.
That Census intentional fudge you point out, does smell like another attempt to falsify Data
Do you have any idea what the undercount numbers are?
As no one seems to have a notion what the real illegal entry count has become.
Most people do not believe they gained ground over past years since 2020.
Since Union Labor is now putting major corporations and associations on notice, it would appear many working people both Union and non Union are not better off.
How to quantify that becomes another best guess estimate.
How about showing the CPI adjusted retail sales going back to say 2010? Or does that not fit your narrative?
I’m not sure what you’re looking at; Mish’s last table has adjusted retail sales back to 1992.
But what I’d like to see in the graph is a trendline from 2009 thru now – which Mish sometimes includes. Eyeballing it, it looks like adjusted retail sales are back to the previous trendline, after massively decreasing during COVID and massively increasing (for different purchases?) in the immediate post-COVID era. So back to the expected – had we forecasted five years out in 2019?
Thank you for adding the long term comparison. So basically (by eyeball) we are at the long term trendline that began in late 2009 and has continued, through Obama, Trump and now Biden.
Mish – – When you say “real”, what CPI period base are you using – 1982-84?
Great. We can raise rates