Posted on 01/14/2022 7:26:42 AM PST by frogjerk
Americans, beset by product shortages, rising prices and the arrival of omicron, sharply cut their spending in December after a burst of spending in the fall that helped bolster the holiday season
Retail sales fell a seasonally adjusted 1.9% in December compared with the previous month when sales increased 0.3%, the U.S. Commerce Department said Friday.
Sales at department stores fell 7%. restaurant sales slipped 0.8% and online sales fell 8.7%.
Omicron was identified by the World Health Organization in late November, and the December report from the Commerce Department is the first to capture some of its effect on consumer behavior.
The monthly retail report covers only about a third of overall consumer spending and doesn’t include money spent on things like haircuts, hotel stays or plane tickets, all which tend to see business tail off when anxiety about COVID-19 tick higher.
The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail trade group, is crunching last month's sales figures and is expected to release the actual holiday sales results later Friday. It's expecting a record breaking growth of anywhere from 8.5% and 10.5% compared to the year-earlier period despite the challenges facing shoppers and stores.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Hmmm
If Trump was still in office the title would have been:
“December Retail Sales Plummet Sharply”.
Nothing to see here. If anything goes wrong it is because of Covid-19, but otherwise our wise and esteemed leader will guide us to the glorious socialist motherland.
It’s not a problem, it’s a feature.
All part of De Plan™
Its not going to get better anytime soon.
This country has completely misaligned labor & capital for a very long time. Combine that with regulatory and environmental zealotry and you have our current predicament.
The “chickens are coming home to roost” after decades of policy stupidity.
With all the supply chain disruption last year, I suspect a lot of people started their Christmas shopping in June.
I started buying next Christmas sale items already.
Since prices were way up-—this is not a correct calculation.
Combine that with regulatory and environmental zealotry
One of the less known or mentioned things Trump did to MAGA was cut out a lot of unnecessary regulations. Getting us out of the climate accords was a big deal, which, of course, Biden reversed.
Hey Joe!
close more pipelines, stop more drilling and fire more people who wont follow your damn mandates! THAT WILL FIX IT!
/s
Not here. We don’t need more useless clutter.
One of the less known or mentioned things Trump did to MAGA was cut out a lot of unnecessary regulations. Getting us out of the climate accords was a big deal, which, of course, Biden reversed.
Good point.
I know its one of the many reasons I’m glad I voted for Trump 4 times. I liked his approach to business.
People got caught up in the brash egotistical persona of Trump, which made some of them mad, even though his pro agriculture, industry, & financial policies were best for the country. The democrats are horrible on all 3 of those important sectors of our economy.
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