Wealthy Americans Will Spend 5% Less This Holiday Season
A new report from the American Affluence Research Center says
that wealthy Americans are planning on spending 5% less this holiday season. For purposes of the study, wealthy was defined as families making over $300,000 a year.
Respondents with average incomes of $300,000 said they will spend $2,380 on average this year, compared with $2,505 last year, according to the survey.
Nine percent said they won't buy any gifts, 38 percent said they will spend less, 59 percent said their expenditures will remain the same and 3 percent said they will spend more. In the U.S., the wealthy have curbed purchasing for more than a year because of Wall Street job cuts, volatile financial markets and lower home values.
"Most of these households continue to be cautious about their spending, because they do not expect to see a true recovery of the economy and their net worth for two years or more," Ron Kurtz, the Alpharetta, Georgia-based center's founder, said.
Kurtz says he believes that last year was the worst year for holiday spending and that this year will be bad for retailers, but not quite as bad as last year. The average net worth of the 684 adult consumers surveyed was
$3.1 million. You know the economy is bad when 9% of wealthy families aren't planning on spending anything at all on the holiday season.
