Retail sales tumble much more than expected in January

Americans pumped the brakes on spending in January after a pivotal holiday season as they continued to confront high interest rates and steeper prices for everyday goods.Retail sales, a measure of how much consumers spent on a number of everyday goods including cars, food and gasoline, tumbled 0.8% in January, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That is lower than both the 0.1% decline projected by Refinitiv economists and the revised 0.4% increase recorded in December.It marks the worst mont