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Inflation isn’t just on the minds of adults. Teens are citing rising costs as a concern as they do their holiday shopping, according to a new survey.
Junior Achievement’s annual JA Teens & Holiday Spending survey reveals that more than two thirds of teens or 70% are concerned about the impact of inflation on this year’s holiday shopping season. That is nearly the same as results from last year’s survey response of 71%.
“We’ve seen consumer prices stabilize in the past couple of years, but there’s still that anxiety around prices, especially when teens have experienced that price jump,” Ed Grocholski, chief marketing officer for Junior Achievement USA, told USA TODAY.
Rise in cost of everyday products affects budgets
Samhith Padala, an 18-year-old college freshman at the University of California, Berkeley, said he and his friends are feeling the pinch of inflation both in everyday expenses and in purchases geared toward the holidays.
“I think inflation has been extremely difficult for people to purchase goods that they’ve purchased previously,” Padala, a Phoenix native, told USA TODAY. “I’m thinking candy, stuffed animals, even gift wrap or gift bags or tape. Things you may not even think about.”
Most of those items, Padala said, used to cost $1 at a dollar store, but now cost a quarter more.
That can lead to tough budget choices for Padala and his friends, he said. Padala said he has a friend at college who works a job at a hotel and he struggled with whether to buy his mom a birthday present or pay for gas for his car.
Padala, who co-founded a media production agency when he was 12 that he still works at, said he won’t be pulling back on his holiday gift buying for his loved ones, but he expects to spend more because of inflation.
Teens plan to shop in stores this year
As part of the survey of more than 1,000 teens, nearly three-fourths, or 74%, said they were getting their holiday spending money from their parents or caregivers. But 35% said they were using their own money earned from a traditional job or gig job for their holiday gift-giving.
Additionally, 75% of teens said they planned to shop “in-store” this year, compared to 76% in 2023, with 69% also shopping online, compared to 67% in 2023.
Grocholski said the Junior Achievement survey started to show that trend of teens wanting to shop in-person about five or six years ago.
“It’s one of those things when you have access to technology all the time, it may not be a unique or novel experience as it used to be,” Grocholski said. “So a lot of teens are certainly open to going to stores and exploring the different things they can buy.”
Inflation is on the mind of all shoppers
Inflation and higher prices are on the minds of all holiday shoppers this year. According to a Gartner Marketing Practice survey done earlier this fall, 64% of consumers surveyed said they were planning to maintain their holiday spending this year while 21% said they were pulling back.
Still, the National Retail Federation said holiday spending is expected to grow this year, up between 2.5% and 3.5% over 2023. Consumers are expected to spend between $979.5 billion and $989 billion in total holiday spending in November and December, up from $955.6 billion during the same time frame last year, the trade group for the retail industry said during it’s annual 2024 holiday sales forecast call in October.
Betty Lin-Fisher is a consumer reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at blinfisher@USATODAY.com or follow her on X, Facebook or Instagram @blinfisher. Sign up for our free The Daily Money newsletter, which will include consumer news on Fridays, here.