There's no denying the horrible destruction that the hurricane wreaked on our area. You simply need to look around to see evidence of that. Now some of the economic toll is starting to become clear as well. Consumer spending has more or less ground to a halt since the storm arrived, according to data compiled by MasterCard.
Here in New Jersey, retails sales for the week of October 28 through November 3 were just 60 percent of what that week normally sees. It was a little bit better in New York and Connecticut, which had about 80 percent of the normal retail sales for the week. And those figures do not include automobile sales; it's hard to imagine many New Jerseyans were out buying a car over the weekend.
On the other hand, there has been an awful lot of economic activity accounted for by contractors, plumbers, electricians, etc. Those costs haven't been quantified, but the city of New York has already spent $5 million on pumping equipment alone. It's going to take an awful lot of spending to rebuild this kind of destruction.
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