Consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level in almost 50 years despite new government support measures.
The GfK consumer confidence index dropped from -40 in May to -41 in June, a record low since the company began tracking the measure in January 1974.
Retail sales volumes, including petrol, also fell by 0.5% month-to-month in May, according to the Office for National Statistics, which was not quite as bad as the 0.7% decline predicted but continued the downward trend.
April’s increase in retail sales was revised down by the ONS to 0.4%, from 1.4%, meaning that the year-on-year decline improved to -4.7%, from -5.7% in April.
With retail sales now down around 4% since October, all of this means UK gross domestic product could fall by 0.5% in the second quarter of 2022, economists at ING bank said, though this is partly due to a decrease in health spending.
ONS said yesterday that credit and debit card purchases dropped another two percentage points in the week to 16 June.
It attributed a 1.6% decline in monthly food spending to higher prices.