By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- U.S. shoppers wasted no time in spending their stimulus checks in March, embarking on their biggest spending spree in nearly a year.
Retail sales rose 9.8% according to data released on Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, well ahead of the 5.9% rise expected and the biggest monthly increase since May last year. The less volatile series of core retail sales also rose sharply, by 8.4%. The numbers for February were also revised up for both series.
There was more encouraging news from the labor market front too, as initial jobless claims fell much further than expected last week to only 576,000, their lowest level since the pandemic began. Analysts had expected a figure of 700,000 ahead of time.
The jobless claims numbers have been uneven in recent weeks. However, the longer-term declining trend was clearly underlined as another 1.2 million people dropped off the Department of Labor's broadest measure of those claiming benefits under all unemployment-related programs. The overall number fell to 16.93 million in the week through March 27, from 18.17 million the previous week.