General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhere Have All the Consumers Gone?
(Bloomberg) Retail sales rose less than expected in March after declining for three consecutive months. Since the U.S. began collecting data in 1967, only twice has it seen three-month stretches of waning retail sales in non-recessionary times.
This is puzzling. Why would consumers spend less as the economy picks up steam? And why haven't consumers gone shopping with the one percent extra income that collapsing oil prices have handed them?
Last year, most forecasters assumed consumers would promptly spend their energy savings, resulting in a blowout Christmas season. Because it makes up 70 percent of gross domestic product, consumer spending was the only sector that could push the economy from its tepid 2.3 percent real growth rate to the 3.5 percent to 4 percent rate some economists had been predicting since the recovery started. Forecasters also pinned their hopes on consumer confidence readings, which hit a 10-year peak as shown by the University of Michigan survey.
........(snip)........
Whats holding consumers back? Many economists blame severe winter weather, the usual scapegoat for disappointing retail sales. Yet according to the U.S. Commerce Department, people stuck at home didn't order heavily online, either.
One explanation for consumer hesitancy came in Marchs payrolls report, which showed that employers created an anemic 126,000 jobs. The preceding 11-month average had been a much higher 284,000 new jobs. Most of them, however, are in low-paying sectors such as retail trade and leisure & hospitality, rather than high-paying manufacturing, utilities and information technology. Also, recent layoffs in the energy sector are of mostly well-compensated workers. .................(more)
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-16/consumers-are-saving-not-spending-their-energy-bill-savings
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)It's a finite planet, but we want everything.
Rex
(65,616 posts)These economists know why...but the truth would hurt their paymasters little feelings and we cannot have that!
clydefrand
(4,325 posts)are right here where you are now, on the internet, buying, buying, more buying. I don't really buy a whole lot, but most of what I do buy is on-line. (bought expensive mattress yesterday at a bed furniture store, but then that's not something I would want to buy on-line.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)marmar
(76,985 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Electronics, soft goods have been hurting for some time now.
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)You want consumers, $15 minimum wage, expand SS.
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)City Lights
(25,171 posts)Too many people living paycheck to paycheck, barely able to tread water.
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)No money, no shoppey.
I will tell you where the consumers are shopping, they at the thrift stores and dollars stores. This also speaks to how little the 1% think of the public when they are confused that we are not jumping to spend our few crumbs on their products.
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)One_Life_To_Give
(6,036 posts)hobbit709
(41,694 posts)And except for the 1% no one has any spare money.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)If people have no discretionary income, they can only do two things:
1. stop buying stuff
2. charge it on credit cards
Millions of people have LESS credit than they have had for decades, due the the crash and consolidation of banks, and if they hit or get near the credit limit, they are D O N E spending..
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)We have f7cked that generation but good.
We put them in debt to pay our salaries. Then bitch because they are poor.
Millenials, it won't get better here. Move abroad and tell the loan company to pound sand. Costa Rico?
sendero
(28,552 posts)... cognitive dissonance for those of you gullible enough to buy into the "recovery" meme. There is no recovery.