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  • Americans pinched their wallets at the start of the key holiday shopping season, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

  • Retail sales dropped 1.1% last month.

  • That was more than economists had expected, and it added to growing signs of a slowdown in the economic recovery.

  • What s'more November marked the second straight monthly drop due to a downward revision of October sales from again to a decline.

  • New coronavirus infections resulting in business restrictions and decreasing household income were likely behind the drop.

  • Sales fell nearly across the board, declining sharply at auto dealerships, clothing stores and restaurants and bars.

  • But consumers did spend MAWR on groceries and building materials.

  • The economic recovery has been slowing as America's health crisis deepens, employers are hiring fewer people and MAWR Americans air filing new claims for jobless benefits.

  • Compounding all of this, the loss of a weekly unemployment supplement.

Americans pinched their wallets at the start of the key holiday shopping season, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

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