High inflation has Americans cutting back on holiday spending, poll finds

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Inflation may be the Grinch who stole Christmas this year as most Americans say higher prices have led to cutbacks in holiday spending.

A Monmouth University Poll released Thursday found that 55% of respondents say they are cutting back on their holiday shopping list this year because of high prices. That's an increase from 46% who said the same last year and 40% in 2021. 

The pollster said the trend was reported across all demographic groups, but Americans making less than $50,000 annually were the largest demographic to report spending cuts. Two-thirds of lower income respondents, 67%, said they have cut back holiday spending this year compared to just under half, 48%, who said the same in 2022.

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A Lego store at the Dadeland Mall in Miami, Florida, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023. Most Americans say inflation and high prices have led to cutbacks in holiday spending, a Monmouth University poll finds.  (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

«The rate of inflation may be slowing but the damage has been done after a long stretch of rising prices,» said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.

«There could be a number of reasons why more are cutting back this season,» he continued. «Perhaps those who kept to their usual spending habits as we came out of the pandemic are seeing it catch up with them now. Or maybe their budgets are the same, but they are exchanging fewer gifts or buying for fewer people.