Something doesn’t add up about the American consumer right now. University of Michigan sentiment sat at 53.3 in March, the weakest reading on record. Pump prices rose from $3 to above $4 in the space of three weeks. The Strait of Hormuz closure was knocking roughly 7.5 million barrels a day out of the global oil supply. Consumer expectations were cratering across income brackets.

Then the register rang.

Advance retail sales rose 1.7% to $752.1 billion in March, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday, blowing past economist expectations of 1.4%. That is the largest monthly gain since January 2023. February was revised up from 0.6% to 0.7%.

The obvious suspect: gasoline stations. Receipts there surged 15.5% on the month, a near-record swing driven almost entirely by pump prices, not volume.

That single line item accounted for roughly two-thirds of the headline beat.

But strip gasoline out, and the story doesn’t collapse.

Retail sales excluding gasoline stations still rose 0.6%, the largest non-gas print since January 2023.

The control group, which excludes autos, gasoline, building materials and ...