Glenn
Buying '12 Days of Christmas' Gifts Would Cost $47,000
True Loves will pay a record $46,729.86 this season to buy all the gifts mentioned in "The 12 Days of Christmas" song. Scrooges everywhere can blame the 2.7% increase from last year on the rising price of turtle doves, laying geese, and lords-a-leaping.
- PNC Financial Services Group's 40th annual Christmas Price Index calculates how much it would cost to buy everything from the partridge in the pear tree through the 12 drummers drumming. Buying all 364 gifts repeated through the whole song would cost $201,972.66.
- The most recent reading has the consumer price index up 3.2% from a year ago. This year's Christmas price increase isn't because of the cost of fowl, but more because of rising wages for skilled labor. Wages for performers are up 3.3% in aggregate—but not for all workers.
- Among other increases, the cost of a partridge in a pear tree rose 14%; two turtle doves increased 25%; three French hens cost 3.5% more; and six geese-a-laying rose 8.3%. Prices for four calling birds, five gold rings, and seven swans-a-swimming all stayed the same as in 2022.
- Higher U.S. labor costs explain why it costs 4% more this year to buy 10 lords-a-leaping, 6.2% more for 11 pipers piping, and 6.2% more for 12 drummers drumming, Amanda Agati, the chief investment officer of PNC's Asset Management Group, told Barron's in an email.
What's Next: But there were no raises for eight maids-a-milking, because PNC calculated using the $7.25 federal minimum wage as a proxy, which hasn't risen in many years, Agati said. The nine ladies dancing, who received a 10% raise in 2022, didn't get any raises this year.
Barron's Daily
-- Sent from my Linux system.
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