The American consumer is holding up this economy, but will inflation make us hold back on holiday spending?

From American public media, this is Marketplace.

In Washington, D.C., I'm Kimberly Adams, Inferchi, Rizdal.

It's Friday, November 25th, good to have you with us.

For those who had a day off yesterday, I hope you had a restful holiday.

But for American retailers, we are entering the busiest time of the year.

And for more on the state of economic affairs this Black Friday, I'm joined by Citi Pareti at Politico and Jordan Holman at the New York Times.

Welcome you to.

I can, really.

Hey, so Jordan, let me start with you.

What are you expecting to see this retail holiday season?

So no one really quite knows what to make of this holiday shopping season.

There's a lot of noise with different data points when it comes to will people pull back because of inflation?

Or do they see this as a last hurrah?

So they're going to spend, spend, spend.

But we do have some estimates.

So the National Retail Federation expects retail sales to increase 6 to 8%.

That's a nominal number.

So also keeping in mind that inflation in the month of October was about 7.7%.

So it might be a wash.

I guess essentially to kind of look at the increase in sales.

But one thing that we do know is it's probably going to be more of in-store shopping, which obviously department stores really benefit from the target, really benefits from.

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