The more data that becomes available on the holiday retail season, the worse it looks.
New Gallup data shows that “Consumers’ self-reported daily spending in stores, restaurants, gas stations, and online averaged $63 per day in October — up slightly from $59 in September, but down slightly from $66 a year ago.”
Add this information to the increase in gas and home heating oil and factor in the extent to which consumers are still leveraged, and the money available for holiday expenditure will be scarce.
The Gallup poll shows that monthly spending is far below pre-recession levels, which means this will be the third hard year-end shopping season. The data for middle class spending is particularly disheartening.
Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking October 1-31, 2010, with a random sample of 14,799 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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