WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. retail experts are suggesting that the spike in the national inflation rate may take a bite out of Valentine’s Day spending this year.
A recent 2023 Valentine’s Day Spending Survey found that more than 1 in 4 Americans of all genders expect their significant others not to spend a dime on gifts this year.
That finding comes from analysts at the personal-finance website WalletHub, who tend to pay attention to that sort of thing.
That group recently released its annual survey of the most romantic, yet affordable, cities in which to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
That survey was based on what its analysts consider to be 26 key metrics, ranging from the number of florist per capita to the cost of a three-course meal for two. That list of top 20 cities included San Francisco at number one, with other locations in descending order to Virginia Beach at number 20.
Sorry folks, Salt Lake City is conspicuously absent from that list.
Despite predictions of reduced spending, don’t weep too much for poor Valentines Day. The National Retail Federation (NRF) still predicts that Americans will spend nearly $26 billion observing what many consumers consider a dubious holiday.
Valentine’s Day loyalists plan to spend $192.80, according to recent NRF surveys. That’s about a 10 percent increase over 2022 spending, which average about $175.41.
Spending for Valentine’s Day has generally been on an upward trend since the Great Recession of 2008.
Consumers spent only $14.7 billion on that holiday in 2009, the first year after the housing bubble collapse. But Valentine’s Day spending increased steadily to an all-time record of $27.4 billion in 2020, only a month before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in the United States.
Spending for the holiday naturally declined in 2021, when many Americans were still sheltering from the pandemic in their homes. But holiday spending inched back up to nearly $24 billion in 2022.
The analysts at WalletHub found signs of consumer-fatigue with Valentine’s Day in their most recent survey, however.
In addition to the 25 percent of Americans who have simply given up on the holiday, the WalletHub survey found that another 23 percent of consumers have actually encouraged their partners to spend less on Valentine’s Day this year.
The WalletHub analysts also found that 36 percent of consumers believe that going out for a fancy dinner on Valentine’s Day is simply too expensive nowadays.
But there are still signs that many Americans remain firmly hooked on all the trappings of Valentine’s Day.
Men are especially venerable in that regard, spending nearly twice what the average woman spends on the holiday. High on male gift lists are flowers, candy, lingerie and jewelry.
The WalletHub experts predicted that nearly $10 billion in total spending will go to jewelry purchases ($5.5 billion) and expensive dinners ($4.4 billion).
Contrary to popular belief, the observance of Valentine’s Day was not invented by American business interests. The Library of Congress says that the early Christian church has to accept credit for that sometimes-dreaded celebration.
“Although the origins of Valentine’s Day are murky,” congressional historians admit, “ancient Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia, a spring festival, on the fifteenth of February.
“Like so many holidays,” they add, “a Christian gloss was added later (after Christianity became the state religion of Rome in 323 A.D.). That’s why the holiday was moved to the 14th of February, a saint day already associated with several early Christian martyrs named Valentine.”
But modern retailers aren’t entirely off the hook, because early observances of Valentine’s Day were more associated with genuine romance than commerce.
During the Middle Ages, according to the Library of Congress records, lovers recited verse or prose to one another on St. Valentine’s Day, rather than observing the holiday with gifts.
But the era of such strictly sentimental observances of Valentine’s Day is seemingly long gone.