May 15, 2019

Retail Sales and Industrial Production Were Down In April

Retail sales have been flat for the past year, while industrial production has been declining since the start of 2019. Both went down in April:

This caused the Atlanta Fed’s GDP Nowcast to plummet. They’re now forecasting GDP growth of 1.1 percent for the second quarter:

This is hardly final. The official GDP estimate for Q2 is still a couple of months away. Still, it’s kind of meh news.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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