国际英语新闻:U.S. consumers plan to spend more this holiday season: survey

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. consumers planned to spend more than last year in the upcoming holiday season, as they perceived improvement in their financial situation, according to a leading industry survey released on Wednesday.

Twenty-four percent of the 1,012 consumers surveyed said that their financial condition was better this year than a year ago, compared to 19 percent last year, showed the 13th annual nationwide holiday spending survey of consumers conducted on Nov. 9-13 by the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) and the Credit Union National Association (CUNA).

In addition, this year only 33 percent of consumers reported that their condition was worse compared to a year ago, as against 37 percent in the previous year.

As a result of improving financial condition, 12 percent of consumers said they were planning to spend more this year than last year, more than 8 percent recorded a year ago. However, 38 percent of consumers said they will spend less, compared to a slightly higher level of 41 percent last year.

The fresh findings are an improvement from the 2008 survey, in which 55 percent of respondents said they intended to spend less at the depth of the Great Recession. From 2000 to 2007, the percentage of those who indicated they planned to spend less never exceeded 35 percent, and often was 30 percent or lower.

"Our survey results suggest that holiday spending this year will likely rise by between 3 percent and 4 percent compared to last year," said CUNA Chief Economist Bill Hampel. "This represents the fourth year of gradual improvement in holiday spending plans since a sharp decline in such plans in 2008."

Another industry group National Retail Federation (NRF) predicted in October that U.S. holiday sales this year would increase to 586.1 billion dollars, up 4.1 percent from the previous year. The estimated growth was higher than the 10-year average holiday sales increase of 3.5 percent. Holiday season is November and December, which include U.S. traditional festivals like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the total U.S. economic activity, and experts expect the overall economic recovery will significantly rely on the rebound of consumption.