Americans, enraged about years of rising prices, are going into the 2025 holiday shopping season prepared for battle. But this holiday shopping season could look a lot stronger than you’d expect – on paper, anyway.
How’s that possible?
High-income consumers keep spending like they’ve never heard of this affordability crisis people keep talking about. But middle- and lower-income folks, despite declaring that they’re fed up with their financial situations, are still spending, in aggregate. That’s prompting forecasts for flat or even slightly higher retail sales growth over 2024 – Mastercard forecasts a 3.6% rise in overall holiday spending this year.
But those folks