The same pattern keeps showing up. A smaller slice of every dollar goes to workers, jobs growth is fading under the surface, and consumers are starting to pull back. GDP can still look fine while the people who actually spend the money feel poorer and spend less.
The consumer that carried this economy just posted the biggest spending drop in over a year.
US retail sales fell 0.6% in July, and online receipts dropped 2.2%, the worst since early 2025. 5 of 13 categories declined.
Consumer spending is about 2/3 of the US economy. With… pic.twitter.com/XYleuwStkX
— Kurt S. Altrichter, CRPS® (@kurtsaltrichter) August 24, 2026
The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% in July, the most misleading number in the report.
Payrolls shrank 23,000, and prior months were revised down 103,000. The rate dropped only because people quit the labor force. Participation kept sliding and wage growth cooled to 3.2%.
— Kurt S. Altrichter, CRPS® (@kurtsaltrichter) August 24, 2026
BREAKING: 🇺🇸 American wages have fallen to 43% of national income, the lowest since the Great Depression.
For every $1 the US economy produces, workers are getting less of it than at any point since 1929.
The rest is going to corporate profits, which are now at an all time… pic.twitter.com/RLsPAIo9Gf
— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) August 24, 2026
If your parents made $100K in 1990, you’d need $255K to have the same buying power today.
byu/TonyLiberty inFluentInFinance
Walmart same-store sales growth slowed to the weakest pace in six years in its latest quarter as customers made more trade-offs.
Goldman Sachs cut its second-half consumer spending forecast to 1-1.5 percent after the soft July data.
AFL-CIO report showed S&P 500 CEO pay rose to 312 times the median worker wage.
Labor force participation kept falling to levels not seen outside the pandemic years.
Early August consumer sentiment readings dropped sharply, especially among lower-income and older households.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/8/20/walmart-sees-sales-drop-as-us-consumer-spending-retreats