As described in an earlier post, we are using credit and debit card spending data provided by Opportunity Insights to track sales tax trends in California. To do this, we use an index—a weighted average of different spending categories—designed to track movements in California’s sales tax base. In this post, we update the index to include November data and to incorporate data revisions for earlier months.
Card Data: Growth Continued in November. In November 2020, the spending index grew for the seventh month in a row, increasing by 2.4 percent from October to November (seasonally adjusted).
Spending Now Higher Than January. Revised data indicate that October spending exceeded January spending by 2.1 percent (seasonally adjusted). November’s growth put the index 4.5 percent above its January level.
