Hello and good morning, data nerds in Tumblr-land. If you get a moment, head over to Bundle and check out the latest data snapshots uploaded over the weekend, showing American cities’ spending patterns in November and December 2009.
A quick snapshot of what the latest numbers show:
1. Holiday spending was up over the previous year. U.S. residents, on average, spent more in December 2009 than in the year prior, with about a $20-40 jump in each category, except for General Shopping (places like Wal-Mart, Target, etc.) where spending actually dropped by a small amount. The slight increases aren’t surprising given the state of fear that gripped the U.S. at the end of 2008. And even though we’re still in a recession, the Bundle data confirms the slight thaws evidenced in other economic reports.
For my city (New York, NY) spending went up everywhere, even in shopping. Which brings me to…
2. New Yorkers (specifically, Manhattanites) continue to be living up to their extravagant-spending stereotype. Here’s a fun game to try: Check Bundle spending data for lower-income Manhattan-dwellers (say, people making $40-50,000 a year), then compare it with a high-income earners in another city. Here’s one for Boise, Idaho, where people making over $125,000 spend nearly $400 a month less on Dining Out than a New Yorker making $40-$50,000.
I guess it’s all about the temptation of a good restaurant.
And speaking of restaurants, our new data also includes expanded merchant listings for the Food & Drink category, so I can now see that people in my neighborhood love them some pastrami.
See any other interesting data points? Post them here or over on Bundle.com.
Leave a Reply