[Mick]

I found this real time tracker to be useful:

https://tracker.opportunityinsights.org/

It basically looks at consumer spending across a range of categories.  Overall, consumer spending is down 20% compared to March 15 (hey, I'm doing my part; I bought a car).  That's actually up from -30% in mid-April.  Three sub-categories are down more than 50%: restaurants & hotels, entertainment & recreation, and transportation (healthcare is down about 50%).  Only groceries are up compared to baseline.

You can look by state, too.

BC

The site allows you to compare three states at a time to national average or three counties at a time to state average. I was surprised how much greater the reduction in spending is in California compared to NY and NJ. NY and NJ reduction is 2.9% and 1.1% greater than national average. CA is at 10.3% more reduction than national average. Most of the difference seems to be in apparel & general merchandise. Not sure if that means folks in CA normally spend a lot more on clothes and general merchandise or folks in NY and NJ just can't let go of shopping.

I wonder how they track online purchases against in-store purchases.  Most of the small businesses in our little town are shuttered.  And I just spent a small fortune online.

And right on time, here comes inflation:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/12/us-groce...-eggs.html

[Mick]

I found this real time tracker to be useful:

https://tracker.opportunityinsights.org/

It basically looks at consumer spending across a range of categories.  Overall, consumer spending is down 20% compared to March 15 (hey, I'm doing my part; I bought a car).  That's actually up from -30% in mid-April.  Three sub-categories are down more than 50%: restaurants & hotels, entertainment & recreation, and transportation (healthcare is down about 50%).  Only groceries are up compared to baseline.

You can look by state, too.

BC

The site allows you to compare three states at a time to national average or three counties at a time to state average. I was surprised how much greater the reduction in spending is in California compared to NY and NJ. NY and NJ reduction is 2.9% and 1.1% greater than national average. CA is at 10.3% more reduction than national average. Most of the difference seems to be in apparel & general merchandise. Not sure if that means folks in CA normally spend a lot more on clothes and general merchandise or folks in NY and NJ just can't let go of shopping.

I wonder how they track online purchases against in-store purchases.  Most of the small businesses in our little town are shuttered.  And I just spent a small fortune online.

And right on time, here comes inflation:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/12/us-groce...-eggs.html