Consumer Spending Rises from Previous Week

New York, NY, June 9, 2009--Consumer spending at retail stores in the U.S. continued to drop last week compared to last year.

The latest weekly chain store sales results, reported by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and Goldman Sachs, found that retail sales fell 0.8 percent for the week ending June 6. The report was the largest chain store sales decrease in five weeks.

However, sales rose 0.2 percent over the previous week.

ICSC noted that gasoline prices have slowly, but steadily, been increasing and this past week experienced a tough year-over-year sales comparison with the first week of June 2008.

“As weather turned cooler than last year, gasoline prices continued to inch higher and the industry faced tax-rebate-inflated sales comparisons, the fiscal month of June began on a soft note on a week-over-week,” said Michael P. Niemira, ICSC chief economist.

“For June, ICSC Research anticipates June sales (less Wal-Mart) will be down by four to five percent compared with the 4.6 percent decline in May 2009,” Niemira added.