Happy Halloween! Wait, Americans spend how much on candy?!
'Happy Halloween,' reads store signs across the United States. Halloween is one of the most profitable holidays of the year. Why? Candy!
Google wished searchers Happy Halloween with its haunted-house doodle.
Google.com
Supermarkets, costume shops, and even Google's homepage wished people "Happy Halloween" today. The sweet 'n' spooky holiday is a major moneymaker in the United States, with the average American spending $79.82 this year, according to the National Retail Federation.
That includes decorations, costumes, greeting cards, and a whole lot of candy.
Just how much chocolate, gummy worms, and lollipops are we talking about? The National Confectioners Association says that Americans will buy more than 600 million pounds of candy this year – just for Halloween. That adds up to $2.4 billion spent on sweets in the weeks leading up to Oct. 31.
Halloween marks the biggest candy holiday of the year, followed by Easter, Christmas, and Valentine's Day. While All Hallows' Eve may take the candy-laced cake, those other holidays enjoy some staggering numbers as well:
- 16 billion jellybeans are made for Easter each year, along with 90 million chocolate bunnies.
- 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate arrive for Valentine's Day.
- 35 million pounds of candy corn go on sale each autumn. (If you laid each piece end-to-end, you could circle the moon 20 times.)
