Commerce reports U.S. retail sales dropped 8.7 percent in March, amid coronavirus shutdown

The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that U.S. retail sales dropped last month to a record 8.7%, as the coronavirus kept Americans indoors and retailers across the country shuttered storefronts.

The drop is the biggest since the government started tracking such retail data in 1992, after falling by a revised 0.4% in February, according to CNBC. 

The report was another marker on how much the once-robust U.S. economy – with record-low unemployment – has suffered as a result of the pandemic. Nearly 10 million Americans have filed first-time jobless claims in the past two weeks and the unemployment rate is now at 4.4 percent, up from a record low 3.5 percent, according to federal officials. 

Consumer spending accounts for roughly two-thirds of the U.S. economy.