Retail, food sales jump 0.7% in March, more than doubling Wall Street predictions

April 15 (UPI) -- The Commerce Department said on Monday that March retail and food services sales jumped 0.7%, more than double what forecasters had predicted but it also raised concerns about inflation.

The advance sales estimates reached a seasonally adjusted $709.6 billion, with the 0.7% increase from February easily topping the 0.3% estimated by Dow Jones economists.

In February's report last month, retail sales reached $700.7 billion, increasing 0.6% from January and 1.5% from that point in 2023.

The March sales were also up 4% above where they were a year ago. The first quarter retail and food sales this year, January through March, increased 2.1% from the first quarter of 2023.

The Commerce Department said retail sales increased 0.8% in March and 3.6% over where they were in 2023. Online purchases drove the increase with nonstore retail sales jumping 11.3% from last year.

Sales at food services and drinking places and drinking places rose 6.5% from this point last year as well.

"Alongside the recent resurgence in employment growth, the continued resilience of consumption is another reason to suspect the Fed will wait longer before starting to cut interest rates, which now we think won't happen until September," Andrew Hunter, deputy chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said, according to CNBC.