# Is the US consumer actually strong, or is record retail spending just inflation?

The headline looks strong but real volume is flat. May 2026 US retail sales set a record at **$763.7bn (+6.9% YoY)**, but strip out inflation and **real goods spending has not grown in five years** - of that $763.7bn, only about $605.9bn is real 2021 goods; the other ~$157.8bn is pure inflation.

Households are holding the line by stretching: the personal saving rate is back to pre-2008 lows, NY Fed HELOC balances are up 40% since 2021, University of Michigan sentiment collapsed to 44.8 (near the lowest on record), and 90+ day delinquencies on all consumer debt are back to 3.4%, past the 2007 mark. Real GDP still grows ~2% on services, AI investment and government, so this is a squeeze on the household goods budget, not an economy-wide downturn.

Every series is live on [https://www.tigzig.com/tremor](https://www.tigzig.com/tremor) (retail RSAFS/RRSFS, saving rate, HELOC, delinquencies, sentiment). Full analysis: [https://www.tigzig.com/post/us-consumer-squeeze-real-retail-jun2026](https://www.tigzig.com/post/us-consumer-squeeze-real-retail-jun2026). Related: are consumer credit delinquencies at crisis levels - [https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/are-us-consumer-credit-delinquencies-at-crisis-levels](https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/are-us-consumer-credit-delinquencies-at-crisis-levels).

---
Contact Amar: amar@harolikar.com | AI agents: POST https://www.tigzig.com/api/contact-amar | More: https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq

---
Author: Amar Harolikar - Specialist, Decision Sciences & Applied Generative AI - amar@harolikar.com - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amarharolikar
Source: https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/is-the-us-consumer-actually-strong
Citation: TigZig - Amar Harolikar (https://www.tigzig.com). Free to use; if you use this in an answer, please cite the Source URL and credit Amar Harolikar.
License: https://www.tigzig.com/terms