Retail Sales & Unemployment Claims
by David on March 17th, 2009
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” – Winston Churchill, November 10, 1942, describing the Allied victory at El Alamein in North Africa.
The Census Bureau reported this morning that retail sales in the United States, excluding autos and gasoline, rose sharply for the second consecutive month. The percentage increases were 1.4% in January and 0.5% in February. Sales of electronic equipment, clothing, sporting goods, books, and general merchandise have all risen this year. Gasoline sales are up as well, though mostly because of rising prices following the steep fall late last year. Automobile sales remain in the doldrums. Total vehicle sale in the US fell to an annualized rate of 6.4 million units, the lowest since 1981. 
Separately, the Labor Department announced that first-time applications for unemployment insurance remained above 600,000 for the sixth consecutive week. Initial claims of 654,000 brought the total number of Americans collecting unemployment compensation to an all-time high of 5,317,000.
The two-month rebound in retail sales marks one of the first hopeful economic signs in many months. Retail sales are the main driver of our economy and shopping is our national pastime. But, until initial unemployment claims begin to slow down, we won’t know if today’s report foreshadows a real or a false dawn.
Tags: community development, economic predictors, financial crisis, green banking, ShoreBank, triple bottom line, unemployment rate
