Consumer Spending Slammed in April
05/15/2020
March retail sales had shown the biggest single month decline on record, but April sales were exceedingly worse. In fact, the numbers were so bad that some experts are questioning the validity of the data. Headline retail sales plunged -16.4% last month, well below the -12.0% median forecast. As Bloomberg points out, the -23% two-month collapse was almost double the -13% drop in sales experienced during the entire Great Recession. The April decline was broad-based with online sales (+8.4%) being the only positive contributor.
