A user shops arsenic she wears a disguise astatine a retail store successful Morton Grove, Ill., Wednesday, July 21, 2021. With less pandemic-related restrictions this year, the enactment to bash much tin effect successful the impulse to spend. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

A user shops arsenic she wears a disguise astatine a retail store successful Morton Grove, Ill., Wednesday, July 21, 2021. With less pandemic-related restrictions this year, the enactment to bash much tin effect successful the impulse to spend. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh) (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

NEW YORK – Despite a emergence successful COVID-19 cases, Americans kept buying past month.

Retail income roseate a seasonally adjusted 0.7% successful August from the period before, the U.S. Commerce Department said Thursday. That uptick caught economists by surprise. They were looking for spending to alteration by 0.85%.

But the delta variant has changed wherever Americans walk their clip and money. Online income soared 5.5% past month, portion income astatine restaurants and bars, galore of whom believed they were done the worst of the pandemic until the accomplishment of delta, were level from the period before.

Health officials recommended successful July that adjacent vaccinated radical needed to deterioration masks successful nationalist places indoors.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.