{"id":427,"date":"2006-10-31T16:16:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-31T23:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/?p=427"},"modified":"2010-01-22T19:09:43","modified_gmt":"2010-01-23T03:09:43","slug":"retail-spending-spikes-in-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/31\/retail-spending-spikes-in-washington\/","title":{"rendered":"Retail Spending Spikes In Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Seattle Times writer Melissa Allison seems a bit <i>too<\/i> excited about today&#8217;s report that <a href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/businesstechnology\/2003332035_retail31.html\" title=\"Spending in state rose 10.5 percent in spring\">retail spending in Washington State grew by 10.5% from spring &#8217;05 to spring &#8217;06<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Those were the days, back in the spring when the flowers bloomed and the housing market sizzled.<\/p>\n<p>Washingtonians had such confidence last spring that they spent with abandon on computers, hotel rooms, jewelry and other items.<\/p>\n<p>They spent 10.5 percent more than they had a year earlier, the largest increase for taxable retail sales in Washington since 1990, according to April-to-June data released Monday by the state Department of Revenue.<\/p>\n<p>Rising gas prices didn&#8217;t wreck the mood and are not included in the retail-sales data.<\/p>\n<p>Economists say the spending has calmed since then, doused by a slowdown in the housing market and slower employment growth.<br \/>&#8230;<br \/>The state&#8217;s economic growth and therefore the spending are propelled by employment gains, particularly in high-wage sectors such as aerospace, software and construction, Sohn said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, the spending is &#8220;propelled by employment gains,&#8221; but when it &#8220;calms&#8221; it&#8217;s because of a slowdown in the housing market?  What a delightful contradiction.  I fail to see how a 10.5% retail spending increase can be attributed to &#8220;employment gains.&#8221;  Were 10.5% more jobs added?  Did everyone get a 10.5% raise?  Smells like false assertion to me.  I think it&#8217;s much more likely that the spending increase is primarily the result of home equity extraction and a declining savings rate.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it&#8217;s just me, but the news that people are spending increasingly more as incomes stay practically flat doesn&#8217;t seem like something to celebrate.<\/p>\n<p>(<i>Melissa Allison, <a href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/businesstechnology\/2003332035_retail31.html\" title=\"Spending in state rose 10.5 percent in spring\">Seattle Times<\/a>, 10.31.2006<\/i>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seattle Times writer Melissa Allison seems a bit too excited about today&#8217;s report that retail spending in Washington State grew by 10.5% from spring &#8217;05 to spring &#8217;06. Those were the days, back in the spring when the flowers bloomed and the housing market sizzled. Washingtonians had such confidence last spring that they spent with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[612,198,1],"tags":[226,171],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local","category-news","category-uncategorized","tag-sohn","tag-tax-revenues"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Retail Spending Spikes In Washington \u2022 Seattle Bubble<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/31\/retail-spending-spikes-in-washington\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Retail Spending Spikes In Washington \u2022 Seattle Bubble\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Seattle Times writer Melissa Allison seems a bit too excited about today&#8217;s report that retail spending in Washington State grew by 10.5% from spring &#8217;05 to spring &#8217;06. 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