A former Target executive and retail expert is warning of a not-so-jolly holiday shopping season as Americans struggle in President Joe Biden (D) and Vice President Kamala Harris’s (D) economy.
Former Target Vice Chairman Gerald Storch said during an interview on Fox Business Thursday, “It’s very clear that consumers are running out of money.”
“They’re increasingly stressed by inflation and the exhaustion of their pandemic-era savings. When you take a look over the last several years, what you see month after month, everyone talks about, the consumer’s still spending. They might be, but they’re spending less than the growth of inflation,” he stated.
In 2023, a LendingClub study found a majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, as polling at the time showed only 14 percent of voters believed Biden’s economic policies were helping them, Breitbart News reported.
More recently, the outlet noted the Biden-Harris administration’s inflation was destroying wages, and the average U.S. worker was suffering under a 3.9 percent pay cut since the pair of Democrats took office.
Per the Fox article, Storch did not have a very positive outlook regarding the upcoming holiday shopping season.
“Now and the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is very, very short, so that’s going to be bad. The election’s going to weigh on things and the geopolitical situation as well, so I think it’s going to be a pretty weak Christmas,” he said.
The nation has seen a wave of retail stores closing down amid challenges between physical locations and the growth of the internet, Storch noted.
He added:
[The consumer is] spending more and getting less. Look at some of these numbers year-over-year. Electronics and appliance stores down 4.6% … Sporting goods down 3.5% … Department stores down 1.2% less than last year. Not even controlling for the 2.4% inflation increase … So from my point of view, I don’t think this is very good.
In a social media post in September, former President Donald Trump (R), who is campaigning against Harris and her running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) in the 20204 presidential election, pointed to the “Cost of Kamala.”
Trump cited the rising cost of basic grocery staples under the Biden-Harris administration compared to when he was leading the nation:
Americans have been suffering under the rising costs of everyday essentials such as food, rent, and electricity, since Biden and Harris took office in 2021, Breitbart News reported on Tuesday.
