Last month's retail sales in the United States turned up for the first time in four months, with a significant recovery of 5.3%.
This is probably because the cash benefits included in the government's economic measures have increased consumer confidence.
Last month's US retail sales were $ 568.2 billion, or about 60 trillion yen in Japanese yen, announced by the US Department of Commerce on the 17th, a significant increase of 5.3% over the previous month.
It was the first time in four months that retail sales began to increase, and looking at the breakdown,
“department stores” accounted for 23.5% and
“online mail order” accounted for 11.0%,
both of which increased from the previous month.
It is believed that this is because the cash benefits of more than 60,000 yen per person and the strong stock market, which were included in the national economic measures enacted at the end of last year, boosted consumer motivation.
In the United States, the number of people infected with the new coronavirus has been declining since the middle of last month, and vaccination is gradually progressing, so the Congressional Budget Office has recovered to the level before the spread of the infection in the middle of the US economy. I expect that.
However, the pace of improvement in the employment environment has slowed, and there are continuing concerns about an "economic recovery without employment" in which the number of unemployed people does not decrease easily compared to economic activity, stock prices, and corporate performance.