Real Retail Sales

Consumer spending is the largest single component of GDP, so what households are actually buying — not just how they say they feel — is the cleanest read on whether the consumer economy is expanding or contracting. Real Retail Sales captures the dollar volume of retail and food-service receipts after stripping out price inflation, so a negative YoY reading means people are genuinely buying less, not just paying less. Useful for spotting the moment when sentiment, labor stress, and credit-card delinquency translate into actual pulled-back spending — historically the inflection point that turns a slowing economy into a recession. Pair with the Consumer Sentiment card to spot divergences (households say one thing, do another) and with Credit Card Delinquency to spot the late-cycle pattern where stress shows up first in repayment, then in spending.