A holiday market featuring artisans from around the world runs at Bryant Park in New York City during the holiday season. Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

Americans, enraged about years of rising prices, are going into the 2025 holiday shopping season prepared for battle . But this holiday shopping season could look a lot stronger than you’d expect – on paper, anyway.

How’s that possible ?

High-income consumers keep spending like they’ve never heard of this affordability crisis people keep talking about. But middle- and lower-income folks, despite declaring that they’re fed up with their financial situations , are still spending, in aggregate. That’s prompting forecasts for flat or even slightly higher retail sales growth over 2024 – Mastercard forecasts a 3.6% rise in overall holiday

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