News

Retail sales off to good start in new year

February 22, 2017

Retail sales in January rose 0.4 percent and represented a 5.6 percent increase compared to the previous year.

The Census Bureau figures, as cited by US News, states sales were up just over $471 billion in January.

"Consumers are spending, with a big gain in January retail sales and a large upward revision to December sales," Gus Faucher, deputy chief economist at The PNC Financial Services Group, wrote in a research note, according to the report.

"Some of it is because higher gasoline prices have pushed up nominal consumer spending, but much more is because of better fundamental conditions for household spending," he wrote.