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Dec 16, 2020
COVID is making it hard for people to spend during the holidays
Customers wear face masks while waiting in line to shop inside a Best Buy store on Black Friday in Hawthorne, Calif., on Nov. 27, 2020.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Also, record numbers of daily COVID deaths in Germany as the country enters a four-week lockdown. And, college athletics departments looking to compensate for lost income turn to gambling partnerships.
Segments From this episode
Retail sales disappoint at a time when the COVID-stressed economy could use more spending
Susan Schmidt, head of U.S. equities at Aviva Investors, says what we saw was “a decline of 1.1% month over month. Now, that’s not good as we head into the holiday shopping season. The worst sectors in that were clothing stores and restaurants.” Moreover, Schmidt said, “we were hoping with the advent of the Christmas holidays, you’d see that shopping increase. We’re not. And so instead we see a consumer that’s still pretty tentative going into the holiday season and waiting for further stimulus from the government.”
Germany registers more than 950 COVID deaths in the past 24 hours, the highest daily figure for the pandemic
The BBC’s Jenny Hill reports.
Music from the episode
All the Pieces Patrice Pike
The team
David Brancaccio
Host
Victoria Craig
Host, BBC
Stephen Ryan
Senior Producer, BBC
Jonathan Frewin
Producer, BBC
Daniel Shin
Producer
Jay Siebold
Technical Director
Brian Allison
Engineer
Meredith Garretson Morbey
Senior Producer
Erika Soderstrom
Producer
Rose Conlon
Producer
Alex Schroeder
Producer