NEW YORK
One trillion dollars. That is the National Retail Federation's number for this year's holiday season: in a forecast released Thursday, the NRF said U.S. holiday sales in November and December will grow 4.2% to $1.013 trillion, an acceleration from last year's 3.1% rise to $972 billion. Reuters reported the forecast on Thursday, and the federation published the same figures in its own release. If the NRF is right, this will be the first holiday season in American history to clear the trillion-dollar line — a milestone that says as much about prices as it does about generosity.
The forecast comes with the usual fine print. According to the NRF, the figures exclude automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants, and the projection is built on modeling that weighs consumer spending, employment, wages and past retail sales. In other words, it is a bet that Americans with jobs and slowly rising paychecks will do what they reliably do in November and December: spend. NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay, in the federation's release as reported by Reuters, said the forecast reflects confidence that consumers will prioritize the holidays even while staying mindful of their budgets — the industry's way of saying the shopping will happen, but nobody is pretending shoppers feel flush.
Half the growth is prices
The most honest number in the forecast may be the one underneath it. NRF Chief Economist Mark Mathews, according to Reuters' reporting, said roughly half of the 4.2% gain is real spending growth and half is higher prices — inflation doing some of the gift-wrapping. Mathews also cautioned that households' experiences will vary by income, which is economist for: the trillion-dollar headline will feel very different depending on which end of the paycheck spectrum you are standing on. A family stretching the same list over higher grocery and housing bills experiences a "record season" rather differently than the aggregate suggests.
The industry's own hiring plans tell a similarly two-handed story. The NRF projected seasonal hiring of 325,000 to 375,000 workers, compared with roughly 356,000 hired last year — a range that overlaps last year's actual number rather than blowing past it. Retailers, in other words, expect a bigger season but are staffing it cautiously. And the caution is not theoretical: Reuters noted that retailers including Walmart, Kohl's and American Eagle have flagged spending pressure on their customers from inflation and higher household costs, even as they stock up for the season.
The other survey on the table
The NRF was not the only scorekeeper heard from on Thursday. A separate Deloitte survey of roughly 4,000 consumers, also released Thursday, put average household holiday spending up 4% to $1,654 — close to the NRF's growth rate, arrived at from the shopper's side of the register. Inside that total, Deloitte found retail spending per household up a brisk 10% to $988, while spending on experiences and activities fell 4% to $666. And in a detail that should make every seller of concert tickets and holiday getaways sit up, 79% of consumers who plan to give experiences also plan to buy a physical gift. The gift card to the show, it seems, still comes with something to unwrap.
Read together, the two releases sketch the same shopper: determined to do the holidays properly, trading up on the tangible stuff, trimming the extras, and hunting for value while doing it. The experience economy's pandemic-era surge is not collapsing, but on Deloitte's numbers it is the thing households cut when the core list gets more expensive — and the core list, on both surveys, is getting more expensive mostly because everything costs more.
There is a calendar reality underneath all of this: the season the NRF is measuring starts in a matter of weeks, and the decisions it will judge are being made right now. Shipping cutoffs, promotional depth, staffing schedules and the choice of whether to chase the experience spender or the gift-buyer are all being locked in against forecasts like Thursday's. That is why two surveys landing on the same day, pointing the same direction at roughly the same growth rate, matter beyond the headline number — they give an entire industry permission to plan for a season that is bigger, pricier and more uneven than the one before.
What a trillion-dollar season does and doesn't mean
Milestone headlines deserve a raised eyebrow, and this one earns it honestly. A trillion dollars of November-December spending is a genuine landmark for American retail, and a 4.2% growth rate accelerating from 3.1% is not nothing in an economy where forecasters have spent two years bracing for the consumer to crack. The consumer, on the NRF's modeling, is not cracking. But half the growth being prices means the season's real expansion is closer to 2% — solid, not spectacular — and the benefits will be spread unevenly across income levels and across retailers, with the value players and the giants best positioned, as Walmart's own warnings about its pressured customers suggest.
The forecast also lands early enough to shape behavior: hiring targets, inventory bets and promotional calendars will all be set against that $1.013 trillion expectation between now and Black Friday. If the shoppers show up the way the model says, the industry gets its milestone and a decent season underneath it. If they don't, Thursday's trillion will be remembered as the season's most optimistic purchase — made, appropriately enough, well before the holidays.
