Inflation forces low-income shoppers to alter gift-giving
NEW YORK — Emarilis Velazquez is paying higher prices on everything from food to clothing.
Her monthly grocery bill has ballooned from $650 to almost $850 in recent months. To save money, she looks for less expensive cuts of meat and has switched to a cheaper detergent. She also clips coupons and shops for her kids’ clothing at thrift stores,
For the holidays, she’s scaling back on gifts. She plans to spend $600 on her three young children instead of $1,000, and she won’t be buying any gifts for relatives.
“It’s stressful,” said the 33-year-old stay-at-home mother from Boardman, Ohio, whose husband earns $30,000 a year making pallets for stores. “You want to give it all to your kids, even though (Christmas) is about family. They still expect things. It is hard that you can’t give them what they ask for.”
Retailers may be forecasting record-breaking sales for the holiday shopping season, but low-income customers are struggling as they bear the brunt of the highest inflation in 39 years.
The government’s report last week that consumer prices jumped 6.8% over the past year showed that some of the largest cost spikes have been for such necessities as food, energy, housing, autos and clothing.
Overall, rising prices are changing shopping habits for many Americans. For some, they’re a mere inconvenience. But for lower-income households with little or no cash cushions, they’re making harder choices such as whether they can put food on the table or if they’ll have to drastically scale back on holiday presents for their children — or forgo them completely.
Despite the inflation pressures — as well as supply chain disruptions and the new COVID-19 omicron variant — the National Retail Federation says this year’s holiday shopping season appears to be on track to exceed its sales growth forecast of between 8.5% and 10.5%.
But people in lower-income groups are feeling the cost pressures most acutely.
Forty-five percent of Americans in households earning less than $50,000 annually and 40% in households earning between $50,000 and $100,000 say it has been harder to afford gifts this year, compared with 30% in higher income households.
Such financial stress is being felt at the food pantries such as the one at Shiloh Church in Oakland, California. In the past three months, Shiloh has seen a spike in the number of people, particularly those with jobs, coming in to pick up a weekly box of essentials or shop at its market for free produce and other food, according to Jason Bautista, who runs the food pantry.
That prompted Bautista to bring in more holiday toys for the annual giveaway set for Saturday. It will have about 2,000 toys to donate to families this weekend compared with about 1,500 a year ago.
“Families that would normally go to Safeway can’t afford to with their fixed incomes,” Bautista said.