Retail Sales History Added

 We have added historical data on retail sales for the United States.  Where possible, we have spliced the old series with the new series beginning in Jan/1992, and at times performed a seasonal adjustment.  Retail Inventories data is likely to be added in the future in a similar manner. The old retail sales series begin in 1967 and represent a substantial historical addition to the monthly series made available from the Census. The main difference between the two sets is the switch from the SIC industry classification to the NAICS classification.

A total of 59 SIC-based series were spliced with modern-day NAICS counterparts. Of the 59 spliced series, 19 were seasonally adjusted. The source of the historical series is  https://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/mrtshist.html and the modern set can be found at https://www.census.gov/retail/index.html.