Economists insist its vital to end the recession as consumers finally start to make purchases again. Department of Commerce statistics showed last month’s overall retail sales grew 0.4 % from the previous month but were 8.8 % higher than in April 2009. Home improvement sales were strongest.
While this does help to bolster the economy, it’s still slow going. “Consumers are cautiously opening their wallets and making purchases that they deferred or avoided during the worst of the recession,” said Retail Industry Leaders Association President Sandy Kennedy. That caution is well founded. The recession set off a landslide of debt and loss for millions of Americans. While the job picture is improving, many of the chronically unemployed continue to search for work.
There’s a sad irony in our nation’s consumer spending cycle. Out-of-control purchasing, fed by a culture of credit and borrowing beyond means, played a major factor in our economic free fall. Now, its consumer spending that will help stimulate the economy and create the jobs that will bring us out of the recession.
For this to work there must be realignment in our thinking about spending. Too many people trying to live just a bit beyond their means ended up struggling to put food on the table over the past year and half. Now that things are improving purchasing, as needed, is certainly justified. Yet -so, too, is the newfound consumer caution. If this spending is going to be the salvation of our economy, we all need to be realistic about how it might work.
We’ve learned the hard way that more is not better. When we “make do” we can make out just fine. There can be no mad charge to buy things anymore. We are reinventing our fundamental ideas about need, desire and money. And that means this slow ride out of the recession will take a while longer as we reshape both our thinking and our systems of spending— and get our country back to work again.
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