The majority of Americans are approaching the holiday season with tighter budgets and more cautious spending, according to a new nationwide poll conducted by AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
About half of respondents said they are cutting back on non-essential purchases and delaying larger buys more than usual, reflecting significant shifts in consumer behavior compared to previous years. Half of respondents also said they are searching for the lowest price for items.
A large majority of consumers said they’ve seen prices climb above what’s typical for essentials like groceries, electricity and holiday presents. The poll also found that 70% of Americans feel the economy is in poor shape under President Donald Trump.
The findings echo broader data showing Americans are rethinking their holiday budgets.
One survey by Rocket Mortgage and Redfin found that nearly a third of respondents said they expected to cut back on holiday décor this year and a quarter said they were scaling back gift buying. According to PwC’s 2025 Holiday Outlook survey, consumers expect their seasonal budgets to decline on average by 5% from last year — the first drop since 2020. About 80% of adults surveyed by The Harris Poll on behalf of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) said they’ll use credit cards to pay for gifts and travel this holiday season, and about half of them said they will delay paying off the balance.
The president had promised to lower prices upon returning to the White House, but has found that inflation threatens his popularity just as it did for his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. In fact, the findings echo an AP-NORC poll from December 2022, conducted during Biden's presidency when the country was gripped by even higher rates of inflation.
While affordability has improved since then, Trump’s tariffs on U.S. imports have added to inflationary pressures. Despite writing on Truth Social in September that there is "virtually no inflation," echoing his campaign promises to reduce prices on "day one" of taking office, the numbers paint a different picture.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that annual inflation rate was 3% in September, which is most recently available CPI data is available due to the government shutdown.