Back-to-school spending

Families will spend more than $32 billion — a record amount — on back-to-school shopping this year, according to the National Retail Federation.

Overall spending will increase across categories with 40% of K-12 households planning to spend more on back-to-school items (up from 22% in 2020), including clothing, supplies, computers and electronics.

Spending on technology products (personal computers, smartphones, tablets, wearables, etc.) is set to increase 37% over 2020 to $11.8 billion.