Americans spending more for the holidays despite dour economic views
Americans may not be feeling jolly about their economic prospects, but that didn’t stop shoppers from opening their wallets on Black Friday and driving spending to new records.
Consumers spent a combined $11.8 billion online on Nov. 28 during the shopping blitz, a 9.1% jump from last year, Adobe Analytics said. Including in-store sales, Americans spent 4.1% more on Black Friday than a year earlier, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse.
Purchases on Cyber Monday is also expected to be strong, with Adobe forecasting shoppers will spend a record $14.2 billion online today, which would amount to a more than 6% jump from a year ago.
The resilience of the American consumer has helped buoy the economy even as it faces headwinds ranging from higher costs from the Trump administration’s tariffs to a spike in corporate layoffs amid a slowing labor market.
Inflation remains a problem
Yet while discounts dangled by retailers from Walmart to Amazon helped fuel spending, beneath the record sales are signs of weakness, according to online sales data from Salesforce.com. Discounts this year aren’t as deep, with the average selling price of goods rising 7% from a year ago, while consumers bought 2% fewer items at checkout, Salesforce said.
“A lot of growth is being driven by higher prices, and this means the growth in the number of things that people buy is significantly less,” Neil Saunders, an analyst at GlobalData, told CBS News. “So far this year, we have retail volume growth running at about 0.3%, which is very low growth.”
He added, “This is one of the reasons some consumers feel a little gloomy when they see their dollars don’t stretch as far as they once did.”
Inflation ticked up to 3% in September on an annual basis, according to the latest available Consumer Price Index data. That’s up from a low this year of 2.3% in April.
Experts say tighter household budgets are causing many consumers to watch their spending, such as by focusing on a few “big ticket” purchases, or spreading out what they buy over days of promotions in hopes of getting the most bang for their buck.
Affordability pinch
Consumer spending is vital to the U.S. economy because it represents about 70 cents of every $1 of gross domestic product. With consumer confidence falling last month to its lowest point since April, there were questions about whether the holiday season would bring cheer or gloom to retailers.
Some Americans are also facing an affordability pinch, with costs for everything from groceries to utility bills on the rise. According to Deloitte’s 2025 holiday study, three-quarters of shoppers reported bracing for higher prices during the holidays.
Consumer spending in 2025 has been largely driven by high-income households, with the top 10% accounting for nearly half of all spending in the second quarter, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by Mark Zandi, chief economist at financial research firm Moody’s Analytics.
Spending among the bottom 80% of households — or those earning less than $175,000 a year — has “simply kept pace with inflation since the pandemic,” Zandi wrote in a September social media post.
That’s creating a so-called K-shaped economy, with high-earning Americans spending more, while middle- and low-income households are holding back due to rising costs.
It’s not yet clear from Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending whether the K-shaped trend influenced this year’s record holiday sales, but both discount retailers and luxury stores appear to be outperforming this season, Saunders noted.
“So far, we’re seeing value-focused retailers like Walmart and off-price do well,” he said. “Some of the accessible luxury brands, such as Coach and Ralph Lauren, are also doing really well. So there are winners out there, but the low-volume growth means that there are losers, too.”
