Even as coronavirus infections continued to spread, in-person school reopening plans were scrapped and unemployment stayed near record highs, Americans kept shopping in July with retail sales rising 1.2 percent from June, reflecting a rare bright spot in the battered economy. The jump in sales reported on Friday by the Commerce Department, though far smaller than the increases in the previous two months, showed that the bounce back in spending to pre-pandemic levels was not a fluke. It was instead a sign that consumerism, buoyed by government support, remained resilient even as many other facets of American life were increasingly bleak. “It shows there is a willingness and a desire to spend,” said Michelle Meyer, chief U.S. economist at Bank of America. “There is no doubt the recovery in consumer spending has been robust.”

Source: New York Times August 14, 2020 20:47 UTC