The Local Consumer Commerce Index declined from +1.1 percent in April to -3.5 percent in May, according to a JPMorgan Chase Institute report released in August. Most of this 4.6 percentage point drop is because consumers spend substantially more on Fridays and Saturdays than any other day of the week. We calculate year-over-year growth rates in day-to-day spend by comparing a target month (e.g. May 2016) with the same month in the previous year (e.g. May 2015). Changes in the number of weekend spending days played an especially big role in the large drop in growth rates from April to May of this year. Extra weekend days pushed April’s growth rate up, while fewer weekend days pushed May’s growth rate down. However, when these “day of week” (DOW) effects are backed out, consumers still reduced purchases of the everyday goods and services highlighted by our card spending lens. Using the adjusted series, spending growth declined by 0.9 percentage points between April and May.
The JPMorgan Chase Institute is committed to delivering data-rich analyses and expert insights for the public good. Our regularly updated Local Consumer Commerce Index measures the monthly year-over-year growth rate of everyday debit and credit card spending by over 50 million anonymized Chase customers across 15 cities in the U.S.
Author
Diana Farrell
Founding and Former President & CEO
