Normally when we’re tracking retail or consumer spending, we look for increases in the top line number, but there are times like a period of rapidly rising inflation where you might actually draw more comfort from a smaller number because it can mean inflation is not as bad when compared to other parts of the country.
The month of May was one of those. And we watched this to get a feel for consumer sentiment and their financial situation. People doing well, tend to spend more inflation though, can change that picture or distort it as we might be buying the same things or perhaps even cutting back. But because the items cost more overall expenditures rise well, nationally retail spending rose by more than 2% in May, that’s a healthy number.
It would be a 25% increase on an annualized basis. But here in Saskatchewan, we went up less than half of that at nine-tenths of a point for the month and only 5% for the entire year to run on the other hand saw increases of 36% in the past 12 months.
