The Rich Are Running the Register: America’s Holiday Boom Now Rides on the Top 10%

If the US economy enjoys a thriving holiday season, the credit may go less to the masses and more to the moneyed. New data from Moody’s Analytics shows that the top 10% of earners now drive nearly half of all consumer spending — a level never seen before in modern economic records.

According to the report, high-income households contributed a massive 49.2% of total spending in the second quarter of 2025. That number has climbed steadily in recent years, up from about 46% in 2023 and just 43% in 2020. As a result, America’s economic engine is becoming increasingly dependent on its wealthiest consumers.

Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi explained that the financial position of top earners is “about as good as it’s ever been,” helping them sustain the kind of big-ticket and discretionary purchases that keep growth humming. For better or worse, this holiday season’s economic cheer may hinge on the wallets of the well-off.

For most Americans, spending power has barely budged. Middle-income households — those earning between the 40th and 60th percentile — spent around $2.1 trillion in the second quarter of 2025, almost identical to what they spent in the same period of 2023 and 2024. Their budgets are tight, their buying patterns stagnant, and their confidence is slipping.

In fact, consumer sentiment has dropped to its lowest level since June 2022, when inflation from the pandemic era was at its peak, according to new data from the University of Michigan. The gap between the financial comfort of top earners and the financial strain facing everyone else has widened so sharply that economists now call it a “K-shaped economy” — one line rising, the other falling.

Rising stock portfolios and strong home values have shielded wealthy Americans from the affordability crisis squeezing the rest. As a result, retailers are openly pinning their holiday hopes on high-income shoppers, who have both the cash and the confidence to spend big.

“Upper-income shoppers will likely carry a disproportionate share of holiday sales this year and drive most of the growth from 2024,” said Jennifer Timmerman of the Wells Fargo Investment Institute in a recent Black Friday outlook.

Since 2020, consumer prices have climbed roughly 25%, federal data shows — a blow that wealthier Americans have easily absorbed thanks to booming investments, high wages, and healthy savings cushions. Their spending continues to soar, even as millions grapple with soaring costs, shrinking savings, and limited financial breathing room.

“Their wealth is growing,” said Taylor Jo Isenberg of the Economic Security Project. “So they’re spending — while millions of Americans in very different circumstances are trying to survive an affordability crisis.”