Jan. retail sales up 1%, reverse 6-month decline

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans bought a sweater or two, ate out a little more, purchased some gadgets and turned to the Internet in search of bargains in January.

These small indulgences nevertheless provided some relief to suffering stores, boosting retail sales by 1 percent.

The unexpected increase from December, reported by the Commerce Department on Thursday, reversed a six-month decline and marked the biggest increase in 14 months.

But it’s far too early to break out the champagne. With nearly 5 million Americans still drawing unemployment benefits late last month and the specter of more layoffs to come, economists believe the reversal is unlikely to last.

Clearly, however, any lift in spending is worth watching.

“Consumers began to treat themselves a little better,” said Joel Naroff, president and chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors Inc.

Whether this is a sign of a thaw in consumer spending or a blip, he said he won’t know for another few months.

But he said consumers, shell-shocked since the financial meltdown in September, may be moving from “doing nothing to doing a little something.”

The January figures were far better than the 0.8 percent decline that economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected.