Today in business: 5 things you need to know

Retail sales jump, Twinkies are saved, and more in our roundup of the business stories that are making news and driving opinion

Twinkies really are indestructible.
(Image credit: Daren Fentiman/ZUMA Press/Corbis)

1. RETAIL SALES RISE

Retail sales made their biggest jump in five months in February, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. The 1.1 percent advance exceeded all forecasts, and suggested that the improving employment picture was helping shoppers shrug off the impact of the 2 percent increase in payroll taxes that kicked in at the beginning of the year. Another reason for the gains was a boost in household wealth, courtesy of rising stock prices and the beginning of a recovery in home prices, which have combined to improve the finances of many families and boosted sales at places like Costco despite higher fuel prices. "These numbers are cause for cautious optimism," says Terry Sheehan, an economic analyst at Stone & McCarthy Research in Princeton, N.J. [Bloomberg]

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.