The good news in this morning's April retail sales report is that the overall numbers are holding up fine. The bad news is that you can see early signs of higher energy prices crimping Americans' spending on everything else.

The big picture: One of the great questions for the economy in the months ahead is how much demand destruction there will be from the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the resulting surge in prices for fuel and other commodities.

• The early evidence is good at first glance: Even categories of stores outside gas stations were positive in the April retail numbers.
• But the data looks not-so-great when you consider the counterfactual — in particular, that Americans have been receiving extra-large tax refunds this spring due to last year's tax cut legislation.
• Against that backdrop, the April numbers are fine, but hardly suggestive of the kind of spring spending surge that forecasters had banked on.

By the numbers: Overall retail sales rose at a perfectly solid 0.5% in April, in line with expectations.

• It was powered significantly by higher spending at gas stations — up 2.8%, following a 13.7% rise in March.
• Excluding gas station spending, retail sales were up 0.3% in April, which implies a drop in inflation-adjusted spending, in light of a 0.6% rise in the Consumer Price Index last month.

The intrigue: Several retail categories saw outright declines in April spending consistent with Americans pulling back on discretionary purchases.

• Sales at auto dealers were down 0.5%, furniture and home furnishings store sales were down 2%, clothing and accessories stores down 1.5% and department store sales down 3.2%.
• An exception to the rule: Restaurant and bar sales were up 0.6%, suggesting that with higher gasoline prices, Americans might be buying less stuff but are still eating out.

Yes, but: "The main factor behind the resilience in retail sales ... now is fading fast," wrote Oliver Allen, senior U.S. economist at Pantheon Macro.

• Individual income tax refunds were $22 billion higher than a year earlier, he calculated, equivalent to 3% of monthly retail sales and bigger than the hit from higher gasoline prices.
• "But the flow of refunds will taper dramatically in May, leaving consumers far more exposed to the surge in fuel costs," Allen wrote.
• "With confidence depressed, the labor market weak, and the personal saving rate already very low, we expect that to prompt a meaningful pullback in discretionary spending" in May and June.

Reality check: For years, anyone who has predicted a major falloff in Americans' spending has looked foolish.

• At the same time, it wouldn't take too much of a pullback to weaken the overall growth trajectory, given the outsized role consumer spending has played in powering GDP forward.

The bottom line: Spending is resilient for now, but let's see how it holds up if high gas prices persist without additional tax refunds to boost household finances.

The Fed's annual household survey shows Americans are managing even as their perceptions of the broader economy have collapsed.

Why it matters: The gap between how people feel about their own finances and how they view the national economy remains far wider than pre-pandemic times. That divergence could help explain why consumer spending has chugged along even as other sentiment readings hit record lows.

By the numbers: Overall financial well-being held steady in 2025, with 73% of adults saying they're doing OK or living comfortably, according to the Federal Reserve's Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, also known as SHED.

• That share is unchanged from 2024, though it remains a few points shy of the 75% who said the same before the pandemic.

Yes, but: Only one-quarter of Americans rate the national economy as "good" or "excellent"— down 3 points from 2024, and a whopping 24 points below pre-pandemic levels.

• SHED is considerably less timely than other regularly released sentiment surveys, including those fielded by the University of Michigan. It was fielded in October 2025, though the sample is much broader and more detailed.

Even so, the findings align. Consumers broadly feel worse about the economy as concerns about inflation and the labor market weigh on them, even if they are less likely to downgrade the state of their own personal finances.

• Price increases remained the most common financial concern — cited by more than 9 in 10 adults — even as the share calling it a major concern edged down 3 percentage points from 2024.
• Concerns about finding or keeping a job climbed to 42% of adults, up from 37% in 2024, with increases recorded across all income levels and age groups.

Of note: For the first time, the Fed asked about generative AI at work.

• 1 in 4 workers said they used it on the job in the prior month, with adoption more than 4 times higher among holders of a graduate degree than high-school graduates.
• Users were also more likely to expect AI to improve their career than to worry that it would replace their jobs. But non-users were less optimistic, suggesting that the fear of AI may be most concentrated among people who haven't yet touched it.