A recent survey commissioned by JP Morgan Chase shows that consumer spending remains somewhat suppressed, down 5.2% through October, as large parts of the country are still hampered by COVID related restrictions. While lifestyle changes have led to increases in online shopping and home improvement purchases, vacation and travel related expenditures are still sharply negative, with slight improvements in spending at restaurants and other service-related businesses. Spending was noted to be highly variable across different geographic regions with the Southeast and Southwest regions of the country showing strong increases in spending over last year, while the Northeast and West regions are still struggling with overall spending down significantly versus last year. New York and California remain the hardest hit areas with spending still down 6% and 8% respectively year over year.1
1 https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-surge-could-restrain-consumer-spendingand-recovery-11596187800 https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/research