Walmart Shoppers Explain State of the US Economy
Jobless claims and retail sales data have mostly put the panic about the rising unemployment rate in the rearview mirror for now.
Value wins.
Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg
If rising layoffs and weakening consumption are going to snowball into a US recession at some point, my interpretation is that the mass of macroeconomic ice crystals is still only about the size of a marble.
Just two weeks after a modest rise in unemployment sent markets into a tizzy, new data Thursday suggested that it was all a significant overreaction. Initial applications for US unemployment benefits fell for a second straight week; a report showed that retail sales accelerated in July by the most since January 2023; and Walmart Inc. said that comparable sales in the US, excluding fuel, jumped 4.2% in the most recent quarter.