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Americans are shopping—but not with confidence, The Washington Post writes.
As the 2025 holiday season closes, economists say consumer behavior looks less like a clear snapshot and more like a mosaic of contradictions: Sentiment is sinking, yet spending keeps climbing, even if inflation-adjusted gains are muted. Nearly 203 million people shopped online and in stores from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, with many purchasing more practical gifts like vacuums, cookware and jackets.
Wealthier households are carrying much of the momentum, accounting for nearly half of all spending, while lower-income shoppers increasingly rely on buy-now-pay-later services, credit cards and secondhand shopping to make the season work.
Add in uncertainty surrounding tariffs, stubbornly high costs for groceries, rent and utilities, and the growing use of AI tools as personal deal-hunters, and retailers are heading into 2026 facing a strange paradox: strong top-line sales paired with fragile confidence underneath. The result is an economy still moving forward, but doing so with visible hesitation.
