The US Commerce Department announced today that retail sales fell by 1.5 percent for the month of September. This is the largest single-month drop this year and is due to a dramatic reduction in new car sales as the so-called “Cash for Clunkers” programs expired in August.
If the car sales component were removed from the retail sales calculation, sales would actually have increased 0.5 percent, but the 10.4 percent loss in car sales more than off-set the positive sales figures, resulting in the overall decline of 1.5 percent.
Yahoo News
