A 22-year-old buying her mom a spa weekend and a 70-year-old picking out a card and a bouquet are both celebrating Mother’s Day. They are not spending remotely the same amount of money. That gap has never been wider than it is right now.
Americans plan to spend a collective $38 billion on Mother’s Day in 2026, up from $33.5 billion the prior year, according to the annual consumer survey conducted by Prosper Insights and Analytics in partnership with the National Retail Federation. The 13 percent jump far outpaces general inflation and signals that the holiday’s commercial footprint is genuinely expanding, not just getting pricier.
But the headline number obscures a striking generational divide. Gen Z shoppers say they plan to spend an average of $922 per person. Baby boomers expect to spend $168. That is a five-to-one ratio, and it raises an obvious question: what exactly are younger Americans buying that their grandparents are not?
Where the money is going
The NRF survey tracks spending across flowers, jewelry, clothing, electronics, gift cards, greeting cards, restaurant meals, spa treatments, and travel. In recent years, experience-based gifts have gained ground on traditional physical presents, a shift that tracks with broader preferences among younger adults who tend to value memorable outings over material goods.
“Younger shoppers are redefining what a Mother’s Day gift looks like,” said Katherine Cullen, vice president of industry and consumer insights at the National Retail Federation, in the organization’s survey release. “They are gravitating toward experiences and personalized items rather than the traditional card-and-flowers combination.”
Jewelry and special outings consistently rank among the highest-dollar categories. A single piece of jewelry or a weekend trip can easily push an individual’s total past several hundred dollars, which helps explain how Gen Z’s average climbs so high. Gift cards and flowers, by contrast, keep many older shoppers’ totals modest.
The survey also captures less obvious spending: charitable donations made in a mother’s name, contributions toward a parent’s household expenses, and group gifts organized among siblings. That broad definition matters. The $922 Gen Z figure may include pooled purchases rather than purely individual outlays. The NRF’s publicly available methodology summary does not specify how respondents were instructed to handle shared gifts, so the number likely overstates what any single Gen Z shopper hands over on the day itself.
Why the generational gap is so wide
Life stage explains a big chunk of the divide. Many Gen Z consumers are celebrating their mothers with independent income for the first time. That novelty can drive bigger, more deliberate gestures. Boomers, many now in their 60s and 70s, have been buying Mother’s Day gifts for decades. Their spending patterns have settled into smaller, more symbolic expressions: a card, a bouquet, a phone call.
Social media almost certainly amplifies the difference, though the NRF survey does not measure it directly. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have turned gift-giving into a public performance. Elaborate gift-haul videos and curated celebration posts generate millions of views each spring, and younger consumers who see those posts may feel pressure to match what appears in their feeds. Analysis from Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center, which examined the Prosper-NRF data, found that social media exposure correlates with higher planned gift spending among consumers under 30.
Phil Rist, executive vice president of strategy at Prosper Insights and Analytics, has framed younger consumers’ approach to holidays as centered on “meaningful, shareable moments” in NRF survey commentary. That language helps explain why their per-person totals run so much higher than those of older generations, even when their incomes do not.
Financial structure plays a role too. A 24-year-old without a mortgage, children, or significant medical bills may have more discretionary cash to channel toward a single holiday than a 68-year-old managing retirement savings on a fixed income. The survey captures what people plan to spend, not the financial constraints shaping those plans.
How much to trust the projections
The NRF-Prosper partnership has produced this survey annually for more than a decade, and its projections have generally tracked within a reasonable range of actual post-holiday retail data. That gives the $38 billion figure credibility as a directional forecast, even if the final tally shifts once real transaction data arrives later in the summer.
The generational averages warrant more scrutiny. The exact sample size and demographic weighting methodology are not disclosed in the public summaries. A small pool of Gen Z respondents could be pulled upward by a handful of big spenders, and median spending, which would filter out those outliers, has not been published. These are also spending intentions, not receipts. Consumers routinely overestimate what they will spend on holidays. Post-holiday reports, typically released in late May or June 2026, will show whether the $38 billion target held up.
How Mother’s Day compares to other spending holidays
At $38 billion, Mother’s Day ranks among the largest consumer spending events in the United States, trailing only the winter holiday season and back-to-school shopping. It comfortably exceeds Valentine’s Day, which the NRF pegged at roughly $26 billion in its most recent survey, and Father’s Day, which has historically lagged Mother’s Day by about 25 to 30 percent in total spending.
The growth trajectory has been steep. Total Mother’s Day spending dipped during the pandemic but rebounded quickly, crossing $30 billion by 2022 and climbing steadily since. The jump from $33.5 billion to $38 billion represents the largest single-year dollar increase the survey has recorded, based on NRF historical data going back to 2007.
What this means for retailers and families
For businesses, the data points squarely at younger consumers as the growth engine. Retailers investing in experiential offerings, personalized products, and social-media-friendly packaging are positioned to capture a disproportionate share of that spending. Florists, restaurants, jewelers, and travel companies marketing through digital channels have the clearest opportunity.
For families, the national averages are a benchmark, not a prescription. The NRF survey puts the per-person average across all age groups at $274, a number that can help put an individual budget in perspective but should not dictate what anyone actually spends. A handwritten letter costs nothing and may land harder than a $900 gift basket.
Gen Z’s $922 average will face its real test when rent and diapers compete for the same dollars
The deeper question is whether Gen Z’s outsized Mother’s Day budgets will survive contact with adult financial life. Mortgages, childcare costs, and student loan payments compress discretionary spending for every generation that came before. Right now, though, it is boomers’ $168 that looks like the outlier in a holiday Americans keep deciding is worth spending more on, year after year. The $38 billion total is the proof.
