Retail sales plunged 8.7% last month, the biggest decline since the government started tracking the series in 1992, the Commerce Department said.(File pic: Macy's, Herald square.)
WASHINGTON: U.S. retail sales suffered a record drop in March and output at factories declined by the most since 1946, buttressing analysts' views that the economy contracted in the first quarter at its sharpest pace in decades as extraordinary measures to control the spread of the novel coronavirus shut down the country.
The reports on Wednesday came as millions of Americans have been thrown out of work, and were the most solid pieces of evidence yet that the economy was in deep recession and potentially at risk of a depression.
States and local governments have issued "stay-at-home" or "shelter-in-place" orders affecting more than 90% of Americans to curb the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, and abruptly stopping economic activity in the country.
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