Sitting here in my Halloween costume, I got to wondering what kind of data we can collect about the spooky holiday.
The National Retail Federation’s annual survey reports consumers were ready to spend around $8.4 billion this Halloween. That’s an average of about $83 per American, up more than $8 from last year. Now I know some people who don’t buy costumes and I’m pretty sure keep their lights off on Halloween night, so the amount spent by those having fun must be much higher.
That survey by Prosper Insights found that 7 in 10 consumers plan to hand out candy, with nearly half of them dressing up or decorating their home. And their analytics revealed that pets get in on the act – 16.2% of consumers put their pets in costume. The survey didn’t say how the pets feel about this.
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Be careful driving out there tonight, as the United States has 41.1 million potential trick or treaters according to 2015 Census data. Those are children ages 5 to 14.
Those children hunt for the best candy, and for many of them (and me), that means chocolate. It’s big business, with 37,128 people employed in U.S. manufacturing plants that produced chocolate and cocoa products in 2014. The value of shipments totaled $16 billion, which was up $800 million from 2013.
For those of you who prefer Twizzlers and candy corn, another $8.2 billion in shipments of non-chocolate confectionary products were made in 2014. That kept 17,815 people employed.
While many people buy their Halloween candy from the big box stores and grocery stores, there were 3,217 confectionary and nut stores in 2014, employing another 22,086 people.
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