Americans bumped up their spending at retailers last month, but at a slower pace, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Commerce Department reported that retail sales in June rose by a seasonally adjusted 0.2% from a month earlier, less than the 0.5% economists polled by the Wall Street Journal expected to see and less than the 0.5% logged in May. The details of the report were less-discouraging, though. First, that May gain was revised up from a previously reported 0.3%. Second, sales excluding gasoline stations, car dealers, building-materials stores and food services — the so-called control group that economists use to track the underlying pace of consumer spending — rose 0.6% in June from May. Even so, control sales put in a weaker performance in the second quarter, rising 0.5% from the previous quarter after a big 1.3% gain in the first quarter. Here is a good place for an obligatory comment on how high interest rates and dwindling cash stockpiles are cutting into people’s spending power. But at the same time, inflation is taking less of a bite out of a lot of the stuff people buy at stores. Separate Commerce Department figures show that through May, second-quarter price increases from the previous quarter at a number of retailing categories, including department stores, clothing stores and grocery stores, were slimmer than in the first quarter.
