July 16 (UPI) — U.S. retail spending was weaker than expected while tourists from around the world came to the country for the World Cup.
Retail sales rose 0.2% in June from a revised 1% in May, and up 6.7% from June 2025, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday. Expectations from the data firm FactSet were at 0.3%.
The World Cup and Amazon‘s Prime Day helped boost spending, but lower gas prices slowed the rise. Excluding gas sales, June spending rose 0.7% after 0.9% in May.
A measure of retail spending that removes sales of building materials and gasoline rose 0.5% in June, which is down from 0.8% in May, but slightly higher than the expected 0.4% increase, CNN reported. It shows consumer demand continued steadily in June.
Strong economic growth along with rising inflation means that the Federal Reserve is less likely to lower interest rates. For the Fed to cut rates, inflation would need to slow to toward the 2% annual target or signs of a slowing economy, CNN said.
“Despite challenges, consumers are still spending and the labor market shows no signs of cracking,” Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, wrote Thursday.
“This type of data won’t move the Fed’s needle either way, but it underscores the ongoing resilience of the U.S. economy.”
Another economist said the second half of the year’s economy could slow even more.
“A renewed slowdown in spending, however, beckons over the second half of this year,” Oliver Allen, senior economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in an analyst note Thursday.
“The lift to cashflow from tax refunds now has faded, leaving consumers far more exposed to the real income shock from the jump in gas prices.”