Howard Fischer | East Valley Tribune
The jobs may not be returning very fast, but a new report shows the Arizonans who are employed are loosening up on their wallets.
New figures from the state Department of Revenue showed taxable retail sales in May hit nearly $4.58 billion. That’s a 7.6-percent increase from the same time a year earlier.
That figure is still short of the $4.81 billion figure for the same time seven years ago, but it does come close to how much consumers were spending in May 2006.
“I’d give it a ‘B,’” is the way economist Dennis Hoffman of the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University rated the state’s performance.
