{"id":237,"date":"2008-08-13T14:23:48","date_gmt":"2008-08-13T14:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-finance-zone.co.uk\/?p=237"},"modified":"2008-08-13T14:23:48","modified_gmt":"2008-08-13T14:23:48","slug":"car-sales-fall-hits-us-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/2008\/08\/13\/car-sales-fall-hits-us-spending\/","title":{"rendered":"Car sales fall hits US spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consumer spending in the US fell by 0.1% in July compared with June, driven down by a large drop in car sales.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vehicle and parts sales fell 2.4%, their biggest monthly drop since April and down 10.5% on July 2007.<\/p>\n

Rising food and fuel prices are squeezing consumer spending and cutting demand for expensive items such as cars, whose running costs have risen.<\/p>\n

However, according to the government estimates, retail sales were still 2.6% higher than in July 2007. <\/p>\n

Economists said there were signs that tax rebates had encouraged some additional spending.<\/p>\n

“In July we saw a rebound in furniture sales and electronics after a drop in June. So the tax rebates may have helped a little, but not every aspect of consumer spending,” said senior economist Gary Thayer, from Wachovia Securities.<\/p>\n

The US government sent tax rebate checks for $168bn to most US taxpayers during the month of July to help stimulate the economy.<\/p>\n

Mixed picture<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The data showed a mixed picture across the retail sector.<\/p>\n

Furniture stores, which have suffered from a slowdown in the housing market, rose by 1 percent in July after a 1.2% decline in June.<\/p>\n

Department stores enjoyed a 0.3% rise in sales in July, but restaurants and bars suffered a 0.2% fall in sales.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, department store chain Macy’s said its same-store sales fell 2.1% in the three-month period to 2 August.<\/p>\n

Its chairman Terry J. Lundgren, said the company “delivered strong second quarter earnings and cash flow, despite the poor economic environment”. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Consumer spending in the US fell by 0.1% in July compared with June, driven down by a large drop in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-retail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}