American consumers tightened their wallets in July. Retail and food services sales across the US came in at $763.6 billion for the month, down 0.6% from June, according to the US Census Bureau’s advance estimate released on August 14, 2026.
Forecasters had penciled in a modest gain of roughly 0.1% to 0.2% month-over-month. Getting a decline instead is the kind of miss that makes economists update their spreadsheets and central bankers update their talking points.
What the numbers actually show
The headline 0.6% drop tells most of the story, but core retail sales, which strip out volatile categories like automotive purchases and gasoline, weakened too.
June’s sales figure was revised to $768.6 billion, giving the July number a slightly higher base to fall from. When you zoom out, July 2026 sales were still 5.0% above where they stood in July 2025, and the three-month window covering May through July showed a 6.3% year-over-year increase.
