New sales figures show that the Arizona economy gained its footing in the first half of the year.
But what happens next remains unclear.
The Department of Revenue says that sales of taxable items reported last month hit $3.83 billion. That is 7.5 percent higher than a year earlier.
And sales at bars and restaurants - a key indicator of disposable income - also is up over last year, by nearly 9 percent.
Economist Dennis Hoffman of the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University said the numbers buttress figures from the past few months showing "clear signs of awakening" in the economy. He said purchases of durable consumer products, things ranging from furniture to automobiles, have been on the increase.
But Hoffman pointed out that the July figures reported to the Department of Revenue reflect sales that occurred in June. And that was while all the news coming out of Washington and Wall Street was good.
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"Through the end of June, the economy was rocking and rolling," he said. What Hoffman wants to see is whether consumers continued to shop in July and August.
"Is the consumer at all worried about the debate in Washington, the revised GDP numbers, the European debt crisis, the obvious gyrations on Wall Street? We really don't have any expenditure data yet to tell us how resilient that consumer is going to be through the summer," he said.