Super Saturday beats Black Friday

Name: WORLD
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The United States saw its biggest shopping day in history on Super Saturday, the last Saturday before Christmas. Sales reached $34.4 billion, trumping Black Friday’s $31.2 billion in sales and Cyber Monday’s $19.1 billion. Online shopping accounted for more than half of the sales growth over last year, but traditional shopping malls also saw “their best weekend of the season,” said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners.

What’s behind the shopping spree? A booming economy and accompanying high employment likely encouraged spending this year. The unemployment rate hit 3.5 percent this month, a 50-year low. On Monday, the Nasdaq stock index had logged nine consecutive record closes.

Dig deeper: Read Lynde Langdon’s report in The Sift on how the Federal Reserve’s most recent interest rate cut promotes economic growth.

Samantha Gobba

Samantha is a freelancer for WORLD Digital. She is a graduate of the World Journalism Institute, holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Hillsdale College, and has a multiple-subject teaching credential from California State University. Samantha resides in Chico, Calif., with her husband and their two sons.