Retail sales numbers are in for both Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 of 2026. Knox County Area Partnership President Ken Springer shares the findings for Galesburg and Monmouth:
“Quarter 1 of 2026, Galesburg ended up being up 2.1 percent over Quarter 1 retail receipts in 2025. Monmouth was up 1.7 percent over Quarter 1 in 2026, so small growth on those two. We look at a whole bunch of different metros, I think around a dozen of them that we track, the average growth for all the metros that we looked at for that same period of time was 3.7 percent. Both Galesburg and Monmouth were below that threshold,” informs Springer.
“Moving onto Quarter 2, Galesburg’s growth slowed a little bit. Galesburg was still up 1.4 percent over Quarter 2 of 2025. Monmouth had a lot better performance, 6.3 percent in Quarter 2 of 2026 versus Quarter 2 of 2025. The average growth rate for all the metros we look at was 5.8 percent,” Springer adds.
Looking at unemployment rates from September 2026, Springer reports Galesburg and Monmouth was at 4.3 percent.
