US Retail Sales Up 0.6% In Aug, Slows From July, As Virus Impact Continues - Census Bureau

US retail sales rose 0.6 percent in August, slowing from July's revised expansion of 0.9 percent, the Census Bureau said Wednesday, as businesses continued to face operating challenges from the coronavirus pandemic

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2020) US retail sales rose 0.6 percent in August, slowing from July's revised expansion of 0.9 percent, the Census Bureau said Wednesday, as businesses continued to face operating challenges from the coronavirus pandemic.

"Advance estimates of US retail and food services sales for August 2020, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $537.5 billion, an increase of 0.6 percent from the previous month," the bureau said in a statement.

Economists surveyed by US media had expected a 1.

0 percent growth in retail sales for August.

More than 6.6 million Americans have been infected by coronavirus since March and over 195,000 have died, data from Johns Hopkins University showed.

The US economy shrank 5 percent in the first three months of 2020 and nearly 33 percent in the second quarter to hand the United States its worst recession in history as most of the 50 states in the country went into lockdown to stem the outbreak of the virus. While most businesses have reopened from May, new COVID-19 infections since mid-June have limited recovery.