Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
Hey Folks, January Retail Sales Were Revised Up by 2.3 Percent

Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
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I mention this because the implication seems to have been missed by news outlets reporting on the 3.0 percent decline reported for February. The Post told us that the 3.0 percent decline was considerably larger than the 0.5 percent drop expected by economists.
But unless these economists were expecting an upward revision to the January data, their expectation for the February number would have been 0.5 percent lower than the number previously reported for January. As it turned out, the February figure was 0.7 percent lower than the number previously reported for February, which is pretty close to right on the mark.