When Tom Douglas first heard about the plans of raising the minimum wage in Seattle to $15 an hour, he knew what it would mean for his business: higher costs. And he knew what that would mean for his customers, too: higher prices. Douglas, a 57-year-old chef and restaurateur, owns […]
Q1 is almost in the books and so far it’s been a weak quarter for retail sales. At 8.30 AM today the Department of Commerce delivers the last piece in the puzzle. Expectations in the market are a small 0.1 increase in the headline number but the main event is […]
The news from the nation’s biggest retailers has been bleak as one after another have reported weak sales. Whether it’s Macy’s, which is laying off people to recover from declining sales or Walmart, which reported its first ever annual drop in revenue this week, retail sales have been weak. Personal […]
Consumers added mystery to the current strength of the economy as they curtailed their spending in retail stores and restaurants in the first two months of the year. U.S. retail sales decreased by 0.1 percent in February and what was initially reported as a 0.2 percent gain in January was […]
Retail sales gained momentum in January as consumers defied global economical turmoil and boosted their spending for the third consecutive month. Consumers spent $449.9 billion in January, which was an increase of a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent from last month and 3.4 percent higher than January 2015, the Commerce Department […]