Real Retail Sales in August
Nominal sales growth at 1.2% m/m exceeded consensus at 0.8%, while same store sales at 1.4% also exceeded consensus at 0.4%. However, real sales — excluding gasoline station sales — while rising, were just below June levels. Figure 1: Retail sales excluding gasoline station sales in mn$ (blue), in mn.2025$ (red), both s.a. Real deflated […]
In August, nominal retail sales growth surpassed expectations at 1.2% month-over-month, outpacing the initial forecast of 0.8%. Similarly, same-store sales increased to 1.4%, surpassing expectations by a wider margin of 0.4%. However, when accounting for factors such as gasoline station sales, real sales figures were slightly below the levels observed in June.
The graph illustrates retail sales, excluding gasoline station sales, presented in millions of US dollars (both in actual and constant 2025 dollars). The data, sourced from the Census, BLS, and the author's calculations, reveals that while total retail sales, when adjusted for headline CPI, have shown positive growth, real retail sales, which include gasoline station sales, have recovered slightly above the levels seen in June.
Written by urgent.news from Econbrowser's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
