Lesson of the Day
Census Report on Advance Retail Sales
The Census report on Advance Retail Sales provides half of our “Lesson of the Day“.
Adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, July sales were $536.0 billion, an increase of 1.2 percent from the previous month, and 2.7 percent above July 2019.Total sales for the May 2020 through July 2020 period were down 0.2 percent from the same period a year ago.
The May 2020 to June 2020 percent change was revised from up 7.5 percent to up 8.4 percent. Retail trade sales were up 0.8 percent from June 2020, and 5.8 percent above last year.
Nonstore retailers were up 24.7 percent from July 2019, while food and beverage stores were up 11.1 percent from last year.
Retail spending rose for the third straight month despite a rise in coronavirus infections with reopenings stalled.
Spike in Government Spending
The chart from Pew shows stimulus and deficits exceed that in the Great Recession.
Since March, government stimulus authorizations (not all spent yet) total at least $3 trillion. Another $2 trillion is on the deck when Democrats and Republicans agree to another package.
That is the second half of the Free Money Wonder.
The federal government has run deficits nearly every year since the Great Depression and consistently since fiscal 2002. Through the first 10 months of fiscal 2020, the government took in $2.82 trillion in revenue and spent $5.63 trillion, for a year-to-date deficit of just over $2.8 trillion, according to the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service. Through the first 10 months of fiscal 2019, by comparison, the deficit stood at $866.8 billion.
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