Holiday shopping season forecasts show growing K-shaped divide

Americans tend to overspend during the holiday shopping season, and this year will be no different, according to some forecasts.

Despite concerns about the economy, President Donald Trump’s latest wave of tariff hikes and persistent inflation, holiday spending between November and December is expected to rise 3.7% to 4.2% and surpass $1 trillion for the first time, according to the National Retail Federation.

“American consumers may be cautious in sentiment, yet remain fundamentally strong and continue to drive U.S. economic activity,” Matthew Shay, NRF’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

However, other reports show that growing concerns about trade uncertainty and increased prices will weigh on household budgets.

A separate holiday retail survey by Deloitte found that holiday shoppers plan to pullback. Consumers expect to spend, on average, $1,595 this year as they brace for higher prices, down 10% from last year.

Another PWC report found that holiday shopping trends are a lot less predictable this year, but overall, consumers expect to spend about 5% less on holiday gifts, travel and entertainment compared with the year-ago season.

According to TransUnion’s newly released consumer pulse study, based on a survey of 3,000 adults last month, there’s a growing divide: 57% of Americans expect to spend the same or more this year compared with last year, while roughly 43% plan to spend less.

Holiday shoppers also said they expect to rely more heavily on credit cards to make their purchases this season, with 42% saying it’s their preferred payment method — up from 38% last year, TransUnion found.

In an increasingly “K”-shaped economy, credit card users are roughly split between higher-income consumers who don’t carry a balance and use their cards to rack up reward points and lower-income consumers who are “probably going to make purchases on credit cards because they don’t have the cash,” according to Charlie Wise, TransUnion’s senior vice president of global research and consulting.

Roughly 175 million consumers have credit cards. While some pay off the balance each month, about 60% of credit card users have revolving debt, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 

“It’s very much a two-track economy, as we know, and credit cards are a great example of that,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.