The Republican tax refund stimulus is over. 
Please consider the Census Department report on Advance Retail Sales for June of 2026.
Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for July 2026, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $763.6 billion, down 0.6 percent (±0.4 percent) from the previous month, but up 5.0 percent (±0.5 percent) from July 2025.
Total sales for the May 2026 through July 2026 period were up 6.3 percent (±0.5 percent) from the same period a year ago.
The May 2026 to June 2026 percent change was unrevised from up 0.2 percent (±0.3 percent).
The key phrase above is “adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes.”
The report only lists nominal sales, not real (inflation-adjusted sales). It’s real sales that feed GDP.
Note the negative revision to June. “The May 2026 to June 2026 percent change was unrevised from up 0.2 percent (±0.3 percent).”
The Commerce Department does not revise the numbers in data feed downloads. Thus June nominal was 0.0 percent and June real was 0.5 percent not 0.7 percent as shown on my chart.
Advance Retail Sales Month-Over-Month
Month-Over-Month Nominal Retail Sales
- Total: -0.6 percent
- Excluding Motor Vehicles: -0.3 percent
- Excluding Motor Vehicles and Gas: 0.4 percent
- Motor Vehicles: -1.8 percent
- Nonstore Sales: -2.2 percent
- Food Service: 0.5 percent
- Food Stores: 0.2 percent
- Gas Stations: -0.9 percent
- General Merchandise: 0.3 percent
Weakness is pervasive except food service. Note the huge 2.2 percent decline in nonstore sales.
Real vs Nominal Retail Sales Month-Over Month Percent Change
- Nominal Total: -0.6 percent
- Real Total: -0.7 percent
Those numbers are from the lead chart.
Real vs Nominal Advance Retail Sales percent Change from Year Ago
Nominal sales are up 5.0 percent from a year ago. Real sales are only up 1.7 percent/
The difference is the inflation gap, currently 5.0 minus 1.7. That’s 3.3 percentage points out of 5.0.
Thus, inflation accounts for 66 percent of the increase in nominal retail sales from a year ago.
Real vs Nominal Retail Sales in Millions of Dollars
There was a massive surge in inflation in 2020 and 2021 with three rounds of largely unwarranted and definitely excessive rounds of fiscal stimulus under Trump and Biden.
Trump wanted more fiscal stimulus than Congress gave him. Then Democrats went totally nuts under Biden.
The Fed compounded this error with ridiculous QE lowering mortgage rates and putting still more money into people’s pockets.
The Fed has never admitted this error.
Real vs Nominal Retail Sales Detail
Real vs Nominal Sales Notes
- Real retail sales peaked in March of 2021 at 233,440. They are now 229,439 That’s a decline of 2,344 or 1.7 percent.
- In March of 2021, nominal sales were 603,581. They are now 763,602. That’s an increase of 153,504 or 26.5percent.
Over 100 percent of the increase in retail sales since March of 2021 is due to inflation.
Didn’t someone campaign on fixing this?
Related Posts
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August 12, 2026: Look Ahead Inflation Numbers Do Not Support a Fed Pause in September
Today’s CPI report is history. Let’s look ahead.
August 13, 2026: Producer Price Index PPI Was Unchanged in July but What’s Ahead?
The PPI was flat in July, mostly due to big decline in gasoline and food. This won’t last.
Correction
In two places I incorrectly referred to the BLS revisions, now corrected to Commerce Department revisions.
Even planned obsolesence can’t help anymore.
The United States is becoming just Another Mexican Country.
The country is getting older. Older people already have stuff and some wisdom, so they don’t buy as much as younger folks. Immigration is shut down. And immigrants are huge buyers because they finally have a job and can buy stuff. Social Security is going to take huge cuts, which means the elderly are going to buy even less, which reduces the need for younger workers and less purchasing power for the young. The future of retail sales in this country does not look good going forward.
Let’s assume a 2.5% increase in the U.S. population over that period. That means retail sales per capita has been declining.
We the People have been pulling in our belts a notch every year, D-President or R-President, rain or shine.
Meanwhile equities and other assets are at all-time highs, much higher than inflation. It is no accident that this economy is serving the top 1% very well. As long as this class doesn’t complain & keeps donating money to campaigns (& gives good insider stock tips) the leadership class is “hey, what’s the problem?”
Moral: rich people need to spend more so more will trickle down to the rest of us! 😆
Maybe the answer is for the Federal government to subsidize more spending by the wealthy. What about a negative sales tax on Luxury goods? These nice folks need more incentives to contribute to the common good! 🤔
Well, they are the great-grandchildren of makers (not takers) so they deserve it!
The Kleptocrat Nesting Dolls Behind Trump’s Potemkin Gas StationsHow can Freedom Fuel afford to sell gas for $3.47 a gallon? That’s the wrong question to ask.
https://prospect.org/2026/07/20/kleptocrat-nesting-dolls-behind-trumps-potemkin-gas-stations-freedom-fuel/
I don’t think Trump is even paying attention to domestic things anymore. He’s just alternating between trying to find some military victory (Greenland ?) by which he can join the ranks of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great and trying to extricate us from his Iranian Epic F Up so he doesn’t go down as Hoover 2.0. Behavioral dementia.
I don’t think he’s thinking beyond his next diaper change with sexy nurse girl.
Can we just call Trump an incontinent man’s Jimmy Carter?
Correlated to the decrease in the price of gasoline IMO.
Nothing to see here as summer has been strong economically. Come September, October and November when the squirrels start harvesting nuts and hiding them away? That’s when the market could crack.
Thank you. All financial calamities are caused by squirrels, but nobody is ever paying attention to the shifty little grabasses.
Just one look at the real versus nominal sales chart and you see how boned this nation’s entire economy is. “Growth” is something that takes place on paper, companies are allowed to flout the law openly, the government is run by a felon who is openly stealing from the coffers.
I’d go as far as to call America an economic failed state by every metric except having the world reserve currency. That’s it, that’s the one trick we’ve got left and it doesn’t seem to be good enough anymore. All failures are just pasted over with another hearty helping of fiat cash and another loan from our pals abroad. First time homebuyers are non-existent, people aren’t going to college, research is drying up, our military is getting its ass beat. What’s left to lose?
What will fix this? Tax cuts! Especially on corporations so they can invest more in creating good paying jobs for Americans!
Banks don’t lend deposits. So you drain reserves while reducing FDIC deposit insurance back to 100,000. That’s how you activate monetary savings.
Dimartino Booth, in her book, gets backwards: “Fed Up”, pg. 218
“Before the financial crisis, accounts were insured up to the first $100,000 by the FDIC. That limit kept enormous sums *in the shadow banking system* (which was a good thing)
I ran a Manufacturing Company making (our own designs) High-Tech components for PC’s back in the day (Pentium CPU’s). We could concoct numbers such as Gross Sales, etc. but in the end, in board meetings, THE SALES TEAM’s FEET TO THE FIRE was in GROSS UNIT SALES PER MONTH.
Our prices HAD to come down lower once other Firms popped up after we dominated those sectors and we were under PRICE PRESSURES THEN, so our unit sales COULD STAGNATE and yet our MARGINS would suffer. ONLY when we released newer designs to dominate our sectors could we RE-GAIN pricing power and increase our net margins and dominate again.
UNIT VOLUMES were what we PUSHED OUR MARKETING AND SALES to increase and MY JOB, with my VP’s of Engineering and OPERATIONS (IN TAIWAN) was to get our costs down continually to meet market demands but yet pay our people well and continue to compete.
When that all fell apart, I sold out, cashed in my Stock and left the Silicon Valley for good!
UNIT SALES not GROSS SALES DOLLARS is what counts.
Mish, how can we KNOW if these Stats are real or made up?
As I recall inflation (and lots of other BS) was going to be “fixed overnight”.
NOT!
We need a “Trump Translation Guide”.
Words like “…Begging…” mean “Not At All”
Words like “…Overnight…” mean “Not only NO, but it will actually get worse”
Words like “…Deal…” mean “Not for you, but for me and my cronies who front ran this!”
You can stock it on the shelves, but I’m not buying it.
“Nominal sales are up 5.0 percent from a year ago.”
The Johnson Redbook index, which reports yoy same store sales figures, has been showing sales growth of over 8% for a while. People are spending like crazy, but it’s mostly higher prices. Inflation is under reported.
The THIRD term will be for FIXING things…
for now, while Republicans stand idly by…
there is more shit to BREAK.
USS Lincoln’s deployment was ‘not nearly long enough’…
says the guy who has never served…
and isn’t fit for office.
“The Fed has never admitted this error.”
Have they ever admitted to any error?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/us-says-lower-oil-prices-030221294.html
So wait, Iran’s (nonexistent) nuclear program isn’t that big a deal anymore? Now oil prices are the new pretext?
Gee, why didn’t anyone think of that before starting a war on behalf of Israel?
N. Korea leader’s sister says nuclear program ‘non-negotiable’
https://globalnation.inquirer.net/326371/n-korea-leaders-sister-says-nuclear-program-non-negotiable
Yes JD Vance is trying to change the narrative. Bringing down the price of gas is now priority #1 over keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
However, Trump disagrees and even today emphasized that Americans need to accept higher gasoline prices as the price for keeping Iran from having nukes.
I’m sure this is Vance trying everything he can to distance himself from the war.
Everyone knows the real reason (and it has nothing to do with gas or nukes), even if nobody can say it out loud.
“Over 100 percent of the increase in retail sales since March of 2021 is due to inflation.”
Ouch. As a stagflation baby (high school graduation year, law school graduation year), perpetually in a mind-frame of austerity while slipping backwards, I have got by, and added to my net worth, but it has been a climb, every inch. A slippery climb.
So I’m so glad Trump is redecorating DC and carrier technology. I really need a triumphal arch and a steam catapult right about now. I welcome the sacrifices of tariffs today, to build dream factories some day. Oh, and a fruitless war or two. it will be fun to watch the US dollar become decoupled from petroleum and global security and trade. Take that, Canada! Bunch of maple syrup junkies. And I can’t wait for us to assume the liabilities of Cuba. So much important stuff to enjoy!
Perhaps retail sales are slower in the US because all the people with money to spend are traveling outside the country? What’s that about gasoline costing more? 😁
Rich Americans aren’t just chasing low taxes, lifestyle anymore. Here’s what’s now driving the ‘millionaire migration’
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rich-americans-arent-just-chasing-204500732.html
Do you actually READ the article links you post? Rarely do they make any sense and this one follows the trend.
The article is all over the place, talking about retirees (not your average person), supposed millionaires who are upset because health insurance costs them 30k instead of $10k, such that some are willing to completely uproot themselves, move to another country with different languages and customs along with a whole lot of other garbage reporting. It sounds like this article may have been written by AI.
Whew.
Americans are borrowing themselves into oblivion and going to Europe on the borrowed money. That Europe and Asia lends us. It is a global circle jerk. When it stops everyone will cry.
As DR. Ravi Batra pointed out in his book: “Greenspan’s Fraud”:
“If demand and supply are to be balanced over time, then either wages rise in sync with productivity, or productivity growth must be matched by the growth of wages plus debt…so debt growth was the only way to maintain demand-supply equilibrium from the 1970s till today.”
“Real retail sales peaked in March of 2021 at 233,440. They are now 229,439 That’s a decline of 2,344 or 1.7 percent.”
March 2021-March 2026: real GDP has grown 14.5%. S&P 500 is up nominally 86% since March 2021.
Having heard 20 million times that “the consumer is 2/3 the economy”…I would not expect these things to occur together over a 5-year period.
I suspect that it is no longer retail sales that drive the economy, but AI – AI buildouts, hiring, chip purchases. And the growth in the stock market that is enabling those in the stock market to spend more than they would, support children, granschildren – good trickle down economics.
Signs lead to a recession coming soon.
More like stagflation. Short-term flows are falling while long-term flows stay elevated.
To your point about “excessive and unneeded stimulus checks” – I still have all those check proceeds in emergency savings. I’d opine that in the “we regular shmoes world” real world inflation is running more than 3.3%
Related to last post.
“Mish, it would be good if you did a post discussing the issues regarding steam catapults vs. EMALS instead of just trashing Trump on this. Both types of catapults have their pros and cons, but the EMALS have had reliability issues in the past.”
OK let’s debate is the earth is flat. And let’s debate whether the earth is only 3,000 years old. What about horses vs the horseless carriage?
The military experts in the US Army and Navy tried to talk Trump out of it. China trashed steam in all of its ships.
There is nothing to discuss other than how stupid Trump is.
If Trump were to declare electricity to be impractical and dangerous, his cult would start buying candles and using smoke signals.
Luddites.
They still rave about invermectin. Watch this flush one out.