US retail sales rebound more than expected, signaling consumer resilience

American consumers were supposed to be pulling back. After July’s monthly decline, the first in nine months, economists had penciled in a modest recovery. Instead, August retail sales jumped 1.2% from July, blowing past the 0.7% to 0.8% consensus forecast and delivering the strongest monthly gain since March 2026. The US Census Bureau released the figures on September 16, putting total August retail and food services sales at $773.9 billion on a seasonally adjusted basis. That translates to a 6.0% increase compared with the same month a year earlier. What’s actually driving the numbers Core retail sales, which strip out auto sales, gasoline, building materials, and food services, rose 1.4% for the month. Economists had expected 0.4%. That gap matters because core retail sales track closely with the consumer spending component of GDP, so a surprise that large feeds directly into growth expectations for the third quarter. Gasoline station sales led the category-level gains, rising 3.1% as pump prices climbed on the back of geopolitical tensions tied to the ongoing US-led conflict with Iran. Nonstore retailers, the Census Bureau’s term for online shopping, gained 2.6% on the month. Mo...