Skip to footer

Retail sales and jobless claims disappoint, but hope remains in economy

Retail sales gained 0.3 percent in May, lower than economists had expected. Jobless claims also rose last week, according to the Labor Department. But experts continue to have faith in the economy.

|
Sarah Bentham/AP/File
In this June 5, 2014 photo, Chelsea Vick shops for clothes at Wal-Mart Supercenter in Rogers, Ark. Retail sales rose only .3 percent for the month of May, according to a report by the Commerce Department.

Retails sales increased for the fourth month in a row, but the gains were less than what most economists had expected.

The Commerce Department announced Thursday that retail sales gained 0.3 percent for the month of May. However, most economists had expected retail sales to grow 0.6 percent, according to Reuters.

Though the numbers were less impressive than expected, some sectors experienced growth. Major gains were made in the sales of automobiles. Sales of cars jumped 1.4 percent last month, and building materials and garden equipment grew 1.1 percent.

Other sectors didn’t fare so well. Sales at department stores went down 1.4 percent. Electronics and appliance stores also experienced a decline, of 0.3 percent.

"It is often the case that a good auto month is correlated with a poor showing on the discretionary spending front," Chris Christopher, director of consumer economics at IHS Global Insight, writes via e-mail. "If a family is putting a down payment on a new automobile, rushing out to buy the latest electronic gadget or going to a fancy restaurant is not always in the cards. Americans have not thrown caution to the wind."

April's retail sales report was revised upward,  from 0.1 percent to 0.6 percent. The change makes total sales from March to May up 4.3 percent as compared to the same time last year, according to the report. Though sales were lower than expected, the change for April’s numbers keeps retail sales growth on track for the second quarter of this year.

"Bottom line, the May miss relative to expectations was offset by the revision higher in April, thus leaving Q2 GDP estimates the same,” Peter Boockvar, managing director at the Lindsey Group, told RTTNews.

In another report, the Labor Department stated initial claims for state unemployment benefits climbed 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 317,000 for the week ended June 7, according to the report.

Though retail sales were less than expected and jobless claims unexpectedly rose last week, experts believe the economy strengthening. 

“Retailers are on course for their best calendar quarter for over three years, providing further evidence that the US economy is warming up from the cold spell earlier in the year," Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, writes via e-mail. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Retail sales and jobless claims disappoint, but hope remains in economy
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2014/0612/Retail-sales-and-jobless-claims-disappoint-but-hope-remains-in-economy
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe