American consumers are still spending, just not with quite the same enthusiasm they showed a few months ago. July 2026 retail and food services sales came in at $763.6 billion, up 5.0% compared to July 2025 but down 0.6% from June, according to advance estimates from the US Census Bureau released on August 14.
That 5% year-over-year figure represents a meaningful deceleration. In May, the same metric clocked in at a revised 7.3%. June moderated to 6.7%. Now July has pulled it down further.
The trajectory tells a clearer story than the snapshot
The long-run average for year-over-year retail sales growth sits around 4.75%, which means July’s reading still lands above the trend line.
The three-month average from May through July came in at 6.3% year-over-year. That rolling figure still paints a picture of above-average spending.
The National Retail Federation had forecast 2026 retail sales growth at 4.4%, excluding autos, gas, and restaurants. If the current trajectory holds, that estimate starts to look reasonable rather than conservative. A few months ago it looked like the NRF might be undershooting.
What’s behind the slowdown
The Census Bureau’s advance report doesn’t adjust for price changes, which is an important caveat. A portion of the year-over-year increase reflects inflation rather than real growth in the volume of goods and services purchased.
Still, a 0.6% month-over-month decline is harder to explain away with inflation math. That’s a nominal drop. Fewer dollars went through the register in July than in June.
Why this matters for markets
Consumer spending accounts for roughly two-thirds of US GDP.
For Bitcoin and crypto markets more broadly, the connection is indirect but real. Risk appetite in digital assets tends to track macro sentiment with a short lag. The counterargument is that weaker economic data increases the probability of accommodative monetary policy, which has been the single most powerful tailwind for crypto prices over the past several cycles.