A New Economic Index: The Coffee Indicator

"As economists look for clues on the direction of consumer spending, they may want to look into how much Americans are willing to spend on their coffee.  Majestic Research tracks anonymous credit-card data, and can see how much consumers spend by category and store, and it broke out the average dollar transactions at Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts. The data show that during the worst of the recession consumers spent less at the two coffee outlets, but as the employment picture started to improve people were willing to spend more per transaction (see chart above)."

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