Between joblessness, oil prices, market volatility and more, it would seem lately that we are breaking new records in how many old records are broken. Case in point, the Commerce Department has reported that retail sales in April fell by 16.4 percent, breaking the previous record set in March, 8.3 percent, which itself was the worst data seen since 1992, said Bloomberg.

Within the broad average, much direr numbers for particular sectors are hiding. Clothing stores, for example, saw a 78 percent drop, while electronics and appliance stores reported a 60.6 percent decline, and restaurants and bars were down 29.5 percent from the prior month. The only area to actually gain were nonstore sales, such as online retail, which grew by 8.4 percent.

This perhaps is not surprising, given the vast economic damage wrought by the global pandemic. So far, at least 100,000 businesses have permanently closed since the crisis, with a further 7.5 million at risk of suffering the same fate. At least some of these are, or would be, retailers, which would make shopping there problematic at best. On the consumer side of things, over 36 milllion people have lost their jobs, and the insured unemployment rate is at the same level as 1931, the same year the Dust Bowl began sweeping over the country. Since unemployed people generally have less money to spend, it makes sense then that retail sales would plunge so much.

In fact, declining sales speaks to another piece of recent economic news: the decrease in the Core Consumer Price Index, which has raised concerns about deflation, despite the trillions of dollars pumped into the economy that theoretically should have produced inflation instead. This is likely because while trillions of dollars are flowing into the economy, people need to actually spend those dollars to increase inflation; since more people are opting to save their money instead, this means despite the increased money supply, prices are actually edging lower.