{"id":1004100559,"date":"2014-07-16T04:33:01","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T12:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/?p=1004100559"},"modified":"2022-12-08T21:05:33","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T05:05:33","slug":"economy-watch-retail-sales-up-modestly-in-june-yellen-calls-recovery-incomplete-cbo-foresees-rise-in-public-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/economy-watch-retail-sales-up-modestly-in-june-yellen-calls-recovery-incomplete-cbo-foresees-rise-in-public-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"Economy Watch: Retail Sales Up Modestly in June; Yellen Calls Recovery Incomplete; CBO Foresees Rise in Public Debt"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor<\/em><\/p>\n

Retail sales were up 0.2 percent in June compared with May, according to the Census Bureau on Tuesday, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes. Total sales for the month came in at $439.9 billion, up 4.3 percent from June 2013.<\/p>\n

Though the gain was slightly weak month over month \u2013 down 0.3 percent \u2013 car and car part sales are still strong, up 6.4 percent for the year. Health and personal care stores have seen a sales increase of 7.9 percent since last June, and food service and drinking places experienced a 5.6 percent rise over the same period. Nonstore sales — that is Internet — continued their growth at 8.1 percent year over year in June.<\/p>\n

There were few retail sales losers year over year in June. Sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores lost 2 percent of their sales since last year, and department stores experienced a slight decline of 0.1 percent over the year. Month over month, there were declines in the aforementioned car sales, as well as building material stores, furniture stores and food service and drinking places.<\/p>\n

Yellen Calls Recovery Incomplete\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In her semiannual monetary policy report to Congress, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen intimated that interest rates weren\u2019t going to move for an unspecified while, since the recovery of the U.S. economy is \u201cnot yet complete.\u201d Despite various improvements, too many people remain unemployed for the economy to be truly healthy. She added that inflation remains below the Fed\u2019s longer-run objective, and not all of the \u201cnecessary financial reform initiatives have been completed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decline in U.S. GDP was probably an aberration, the chair said, but it\u2019s still causing the central bank to downgrade its growth projections for the year. The Fed expects that economic activity will expand at a moderate pace over the next several years, supported by \u201caccommodative monetary policy, a waning drag from fiscal policy, the lagged effects of higher home prices, and strengthening foreign growth.\u201d The employment market will also continue to improve.<\/p>\n

Yellen asserted that the Fed could raise interest rates, but it isn\u2019t going to yet. \u201cThe committee remains confident that it has the tools it needs to raise short-term interest rates when the time is right and to achieve the desired level of short-term interest rates thereafter, even with the Federal Reserve’s elevated balance sheet,\u201d Yellen said. Talking about interest rate increases \u201care a matter of prudent planning and do not imply any imminent change in the stance of monetary policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

CBO Foresees Rise in Public Debt\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Congressional Budget Office released a report on Tuesday predicting that the U.S. public debt will \u2013 extrapolating current conditions, never a sure thing \u2013 be equal to 78 percent of GDP by 2024. Currently, public debt is about 74 percent of GDP. The CBO further predicted that debt will rise to exceed GDP by 2039 (that is, more than 100 percent). Federal deficits, which add to the overall debt year by year, have been improving, lately dropping below 3 percent of GDP, but the CBO doesn\u2019t expect that trend to continue.<\/p>\n

To give the 100 percent public debt number some context, it\u2019s useful to know that most developed countries have high public debt compared with GDP, such as Germany (nearly 80 percent of German GDP), Canada (about 84 percent), France (nearly 90 percent), the U.K. (90 percent), and Japan \u2013 an extreme example \u2013 now about 214.3 percent. All of those debt levels are predicted to expand at least through 2019.<\/p>\n

Wall Street had a mixed day on Tuesday, but was mostly down, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average eking out a gain of 5.26 points, or 0.03 percent. The S&P 500 declined 0.19 percent, while the Nasdaq was down 0.54 percent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retail sales were up 0.2 percent in June compared with May. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said that interest rates weren\u2019t going to move for an unspecified while, since the recovery of the U.S. economy is \u201cnot yet complete.\u201d And the Congressional Budget Office predicts a rise in public debt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1023,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21742],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1004100559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEconomy Watch: Retail Sales Up Modestly in June; Yellen Calls Recovery Incomplete; CBO Foresees Rise in Public Debt - Commercial Property Executive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/economy-watch-retail-sales-up-modestly-in-june-yellen-calls-recovery-incomplete-cbo-foresees-rise-in-public-debt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Economy Watch: Retail Sales Up Modestly in June; Yellen Calls Recovery Incomplete; CBO Foresees Rise in Public Debt\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Retail sales were up 0.2 percent in June compared with May. 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