US hobby spending rose faster than transactions in August
Bank of America card data show US hobby spending rose 7.9% year on year in August, while transaction counts increased 3.4%. Spending therefore grew faster than the number of purchases. The category includes arts, crafts and outdoor equipment but excludes travel. Separate official measures showed a 2.7% annual increase in recreation prices and a 10.7% rise in sales at sporting-goods, hobby, music and book stores.
Economics & Markets··Evening
Hobby spending outpaces the number of purchases
Bank of America card data show spending on hobbies in the United States rose 7.9% in August from a year earlier, while the number of transactions increased 3.4%. CNBC and EMARKETER both reported that gap. The figures measure money spent and card purchases in the bank's data, not the number of people taking up a new hobby. They do not show how much of the rise came from higher prices, larger baskets or a changing mix of goods. The category includes arts and crafts, hobby shops and sellers of ski, hiking, camping and scuba equipment; it excludes travel. A year earlier, according to EMARKETER, transaction growth had run almost one percentage point ahead of spending growth. That reversal is the concrete change in the bank's comparison and is narrower than a claim that all leisure spending followed the same pattern.[1], [2]
Official measures show different slices of leisure spending
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that its recreation consumer-price group rose 2.7% over the 12 months through August. That group covers video and audio products, pets, sporting goods, photography and recreational reading, so it is not identical to the bank's hobby-card category. Separately, the Census Bureau said sales at sporting-goods, hobby, musical-instrument and book stores were 10.7% higher over the same 12 months. Overall retail and food-services sales rose 6%. The store-sales measure covers a wider set of merchants than Bank of America's hobby selection, and the price index measures prices rather than spending. These figures provide adjacent context for the August card result, but their different categories and methods mean the rates should not be added together or treated as three estimates of one identical market.[1]
Travel costs and age groups add context
Travel lies outside the bank's hobby measure, but CNBC reported contemporaneous price pressure there: federal data put US airfares 26.5% above August a year earlier, while an airline-industry jet-fuel monitor put fuel at 194 dollars a barrel in the week ending September 18, 116% above the prior-year average. Economist John Gathergood said households can substitute home hobbies for trips when prices rise; this is an interpretation, not a measured reason for the card-data increase. Bank of America also found that in the three months through August, older millennials spent more than twice as much per person on hobbies as Gen Z. Per-person video-game spending rose across every age group; Gen Z had the smallest increase but still spent 20% more than a year earlier. A separate April survey of more than 2,000 adults found planned summer travel spending near 2,900 dollars on average, with 71% expecting to spend at least as much as the previous summer.[1]
