Shortly before lunchtime at the Pentagon City mall in Northern Virginia on Wednesday, Vivian Lucas was happy to show off her purchases: $50 worth of discounted clothes at Macy’s, and $30 worth of handcream, shower gel and soap at L’Occitane.

Ms Lucas’s shopping spree was relatively modest, but it accounted for more than a quarter of the $300 (€192, £152) fiscal stimulus cheque she received from the US government last month. She was also looking for a new suitcase, and if she had found the right size, the bill could have been even higher. “I don’t worry about the economy or anything else,” says Ms Lucas, 83, a resident of Charles County, Maryland, who stopped at the mall on her way to a doctor’s appointment.