In which, once again, the hero of the economic story is you.

From American public media, this is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle.

It is Wednesday, today the 22nd of January.

Good as always to have you along, everybody.

We'll begin midweek with a checkup of sorts on the American consumer.

We do that, by the way.

Concentrate so much on consumers because, in case you're new here,

spending by or on behalf of American consumers drives 70% of everything that happens in this economy.

And the most proximate beneficiary of that spending today is the consumer products conglomerate Procter & Gamble,

maker of everything from laundry detergent to tampons to toothpaste. P&G reported profits this morning sales up 3% year

over year. Sales growth mostly thanks to higher sales volume rather than higher prices.

Marketplace's Henry App gets us going with what that tells us about how consumers are spending right now and how retailers are trying to get their piece of it.

Companies that sell packaged goods to us consumers, razors and toilet paper and cleaning products, they've had a pretty decent couple years, says Arun Sundaram at CFRA research.

But growth has been driven by, you know, higher prices, which is obviously not sustainable over the longer term.

A company can only raise its prices so much before customers start to look for cheaper options.

So now companies are trying to keep their prices in check and focus more on sales volume, he says.

Procter & Gamble is having some success in that area, in part because, as their chief

financial officer told Bloomberg, some consumers are consistently buying larger packs of

things.

Again, Arun Sundaram at CFRA.

That indirectly means that more consumers are shopping at places like Costco or a Sam's

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