What started off as a strong holiday shopping season ended with a whimper, as consumers, rattled by a trade war and a government shutdown, tightened their belts. The Commerce Department said retail sales fell 1.2 percent between November and December, the sharpest drop in nine years.
The slowdown in consumer spending put a dent in overall economic growth. Forecasters at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta lowered their estimate of fourth-quarter growth to just 1.5 percent. If that holds, growth for all of 2018 would fall short of the Trump administration’s 3 percent target.
“It appears that worries over the trade war and turmoil in the stock markets impacted consumer behavior more than we expected,” National Retail Federation President Matthew Shay said in a statement. “It’s very disappointing that clearly avoidable actions by the government influenced consumer confidence and unnecessarily depressed December retail sales.”
Read this story now for free
To continue reading, sign up for our newsletter and get unlimited access to WABE.org
You can select your preferences for news and local content. We will never share your email address. Learn how your newsletter sign-up will support WABE and Public Media
