The following is the unedited transcript of the news release from the U.S. Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce.




The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for April, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $378.1 billion, a decrease of 0.2 percent (±0.5%) from the previous month and 2.0 percent (±0.7%) above April 2007. Total sales for the February through April 2008 period were up 2.2 percent (±0.5%) from the same period a year ago. The February to March 2008 percent change was unrevised from 0.2 percent (±0.2%).


Retail trade sales were down 0.3 percent (±0.7%)* from March 2008, but were 1.8 percent (±0.7%) above last year. Gasoline station sales were up 16.3 percent (±2.6%) from April 2007 and sales of food and beverage stores were up 5.7 percent (±0.8%) from last year.



Available at:


http://www.census.gov/svsd/www/marts_current.html