Today, the JPMorgan Chase Institute released its Local Consumer Commerce Index (LCCI) for November 2016, which showed that 9 of the 15 US cities analyzed had higher year-over-year consumer spending growth rates in November than they did in October. While overall year-over-year consumer spending growth declined by 0.1 percent in November – making it the fifth consecutive month of negative growth – the magnitude of those contractions has continually decreased since August.

Across all 15 cities, fuel spending contributed 0.1 percentage points to growth, breaking a trend of negative growth contributions in virtually every month since October 2014.

This report provides a timely view of how the following cities and surrounding metro areas are faring economically, both individually and in aggregate: Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Portland (OR), San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. By looking at actual anonymized financial transactions, LCCI offers an ongoing, dynamic view of the health and vibrancy of the U.S. consumer and the places where businesses operate.

“While we are still seeing an overall contraction in year-over-year local commerce growth, it’s encouraging to see the magnitude of these contractions decreasing over time,” said Diana Farrell, President and CEO of the JPMorgan Chase Institute. “Many changes contributed to this positive trajectory including notably strong growth in spending at small businesses but also a rare, if small, increase in fuel spending growth.”

The key highlights from the latest Index include:

• Houston registered a 3.3 percent decline in November 2016—a smaller contraction compared to the 6.1 percent drop in August 2016, but a larger contraction in comparison to the 2.9 percent drop in September 2016.
• Detroit experienced flat growth in November 2016, breaking a trend of declines in growth that started in July 2016.
• Small business growth rebounded significantly to contribute 0.9 percentage points in November, but this growth was offset by a 0.9 percentage point contraction in mid-sized business growth in that same month.
• Other services, like barbers, health providers, and gyms, contributed 0.9 percentage points to growth in November 2016, the largest contribution across all product types in that month. At the same time, durables spending subtracted 1.1 percentage points from growth, the largest detraction of any product type in November 2016. Durables have been a consistent drag on growth since August 2015.

The LCCI offers unique advantages over existing measures of consumer spending.

• The LCCI captures actual transactions, instead of self-reported measures of how consumers think they spend.
• The LCCI provides timely data on spending in 15 major metropolitan areas; such geographic granularity is unavailable in most other spending measures. These 15 cities mirror the geographic and economic diversity of larger metropolitan areas in the United States and account for 32 percent of retail sales nationwide.
• The index also presents a more granular view of local consumer commerce through five important lenses: consumer age, consumer income, business size, product type, and consumer residence relative to the location of the business. For each lens, we show how different segments contributed to year-over-year spending growth.
• The LCCI captures economic activity in sectors that previously have not been well understood by other data sources. These include sectors such as food trucks, new merchants, and personal services.

Each release of the LCCI will describe the economic picture of local communities and provide a powerful tool for city development officials, businesses, investors, and statistical agencies to better understand the everyday economic health of consumers, businesses, and the places they care about.