by Calculated Risk on 12/12/2008 08:32:00 AM

The Census Bureau reports that retail sales collapsed in November:

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for November, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $355.7 billion, a decrease of 1.8 percent from the previous month and 7.4 percent below November 2007. Total sales for the September through November 2008 period were down 4.5 percent from the same period a year ago. The September to October 2008 percent change was revised from -2.8 percent to -2.9 percent.

Retail trade sales were down 2.0 percent from October 2008 and were 8.5 percent below last year. Motor vehicle and parts dealers sales were down 25.2 percent from November 2007 and gasoline stations sales were down 22.0 percent from last year.

The following graph shows the year-over-year change in nominal and real retail sales since 1993.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

To calculate the real change, the monthly PCE price index from the BEA was used (November PCE prices was estimated as the same as October).

Although the Census Bureau reported that nominal retail sales decreased 8.4% year-over-year (retail and food services decreased 7.4%), real retail sales declined by 10.1% (on a YoY basis). This is the largest YoY decline since the Census Bureau started keeping data.

Retail sales are a key portion of consumer spending and real retail sales have fallen off a cliff.