Americans anticipate that they will spend an average of $805 on gifts this upcoming Christmas, which is $137 less than last year and the lowest October projection since 2016, according to a Gallup poll released on Tuesday.
The survey also showed that 28% of Americans intend to spend less on gifts this year than in 2019, which is the highest such percentage in October since 2012. The number is also more than double the 12% who intend to spend more.
These numbers indicate the real possibility of weak Christmas sales for retailers.
Data from the National Retail Federation indicate that Christmas sales have generally gone up annually by an average of between 2% and 5% since 2000, with the only years in the past two decades worse than the current projections being 2008 and 2009 — during and immediately after the Great Recession.
Gallup will release its second and final Christmas spending forecast in mid- to late November.
There have been massive layoffs and unemployment due to decreased sales since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, although there was some optimism in the latest Labor Department statistics, which showed that the number of Americans who filed their first claims for unemployment decreased to 787,000 in the week that ended on Oct. 17, The Hill reported.
Despite the improvement, however, unemployment numbers continue to be troubling.
The Gallup poll, which was conducted between Sept. 30 and Oct. 5, included a random sample of 1,035 adults. The margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.