NC Today and What It Means: Taxable Retail Sales

The NC Today dashboard serves as a monthly update on statewide labor market and economic conditions. But what do the numbers mean? Using the March 2022 update, this third blog post in a series of four provides context to statewide taxable retail sales.

Author: Chi Wong

Source: NC Department of Revenue. Inflation adjustment comes from the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Statewide taxable retail sales are used as a measurement of recent past consumer demand for products and goods. February 2022 saw $18.05 billion in seasonally adjusted and inflation-adjusted taxable retail sales. This figure has been continuously increasing since May of 2018, when it was at $13.92 billion. Last February, taxable retail sales were at $16.76 billion; a year before that, in February 2020, this figure was at $15.24 billion.

The next and final entry in this series will provide similar background for unadjusted UI claims as of the March 2022 update. To access the first blog on total private average weekly earnings, click here. To access the previous post on residential building permits, click here.

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