WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 -- Most of the extra money American shoppers spent in September went into their gas tanks. Retail and food services sales rose 0.8 percent from August to $745.0 billion, the Census Bureau said on Thursday, but sales at gasoline stations jumped 6.4 percent, and without them the total rose just 0.2 percent.

TEH's arithmetic from Table 1 of the release puts a figure on it. Of the $5.7 billion monthly increase in seasonally adjusted sales, $4.07 billion came from gasoline stations, about 71 percent. It fits the September CPI inflation report a day earlier, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics said gasoline rose 9.1 percent in September and accounted for over half of the monthly increase in consumer prices.

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