US Consumer Dashboard: July 2026 - Resilient Spending, Weak Cashflow

Research evidence excerpt

US Consumer Dashboard: July 2026 - Resilient Spending, Weak Cashflow

Economics Research

27 July 2026 | 6:30PM EDT

US Consumer Dashboard: July 2026 - Resilient Spending, Weak

Cashflow

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n Spending: Spending has remained reasonably resilient, with real PCE growing at Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

a healthy 2.1% year-over-year but a softer 1.3% six-month annualized pace

through May. The June retail sales report was also strong, as headline retail sales

increased by 0.2% and core retail sales increased by 0.5% in nominal and 0.6% in

real terms. We attribute much of the recent resilience in spending to an outsized

boost from OBBBA-related tax cuts and estimate mid-term election-related

spending by nonprofits (which is counted in the official PCE spending data;

nonprofit spending has outpaced other categories over the last year) is boosting

year-over-year growth by 0.2pp. We expect that spending headwinds from

higher inflation will slow spending growth for the rest of the year. We therefore

forecast only a 1.5% pace of annualized real spending growth in 2026H2 and

1.5% in 2026 on a Q4/Q4 basis (vs. 1.6% consensus).

n Employment: The labor market has stabilized. Employment increased by 57k in

June, and while the three-month average of payroll growth (+111k) remains

strong, our estimate of the underlying pace of job growth (+73k) is only slightly

above the breakeven pace of job growth. In addition, the unemployment rate

ticked down by 0.1pp to 4.2% in June, although we expect this decline to reverse

in coming months given that it was driven by an unusual decline in labor force

participation among workers aged 25-34. We expect job growth will average