When I looked at the graph of retail sales in this post from Bill McBride a number of things jumped out at me. First, if you extend the line showing total retail and food service sales from their 2008 maximum, we’re just 3$ or 4% below where that suggests we would have been without the housing/financial crisis and recession. However, if you extend the line showing total retail and food service sales with the exception of gasoline it’s still significantly below where it might otherwise have been. Since we consuming significantly less gasoline now than we were then that means that although we’re spending as much as we otherwise would be spending we’re spending a lot more on gasoline. Needless to say, buying more gas doesn’t create many jobs.
Second, when you look at income growth by quintile over the last several years, except for those in the top quintile, growth is pretty flat.
That means that if most people are buying more they’re doing so by going into debt. Either that or most of the additional consumption is by those in the topmost quintile.
And people in the bottom four quintiles are spending a larger proportion of their incomes on gasoline.
