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Estimated retail sales for May decreased 10.7%, to $301.7 billion from $338 billion during the same month last year, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today.
Retail sales for May increased 53 basis points from $300.1 billion during the previous month, according to the Census Bureau's Advance Monthly Retail and Food Services Survey, which provides an early estimate of monthly sales for U.S. retail and food-service firms. Each month, the bureau mails questionnaires to approximately 5,000 companies.
Despite the drop in estimated retail sales, the percentage of consumers who said they believe the economy is improving continued to grow in May, marking three consecutive monthly increases, according to survey data from Discover Financial Services.
Some 27% of consumers surveyed last month said they believed the economy is getting better, five percentage points higher than those who said so in April. Conversely, 49% of respondents said they thought conditions were getting worse, down from 51% who said so the previous month. Last month represented the first time less than half of the survey respondents were pessimistic about their economic outlook, according to the survey data.
