Everybody else - from the corner convenience store to Costco, from your auto dealer to Boeing - splits the other 39 dollars. In other words, what's happening at Walmart is the most important single indicator of the health of the U.S. economy.
In the first part of February, Walmart's sales were down sharply. Some analysts are attributing this decline to the increase in the January 1 increase in the payroll tax. George Packer in The New Yorker writes:
It’s amazing how little attention the payroll-tax increase got at the time—maybe because so few of the players and observers involved could imagine how much difference fifteen dollars out of the weekly paycheck of someone earning forty thousand dollars a year could make.Don't be surprised if our economy isn't doing very well this year.
