The day after Thanksgiving - Black Friday - typically marks the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season.
But the starting gun has been fired off earlier each year, as businesses look to one-up their competitors. Now, "pre-Black Friday" sales often start before Thanksgiving.
Do Jefferson City residents have enough discretionary income to keep local retailers in the black? A recent study shows mixed signals.
A Trove Technologies study found Jefferson City ranks No. 7 out of eight cities in Missouri for discretionary income, while the state of Missouri ranks #10 in the U.S.
"Our research finds that salaries are substantially lower in Jefferson City than the rest of the state, while basic expenses are similar compared to other small cities in the state," said Michael Pao, co-founder of Trove Technologies, a storage company based in San Francisco. "The silver lining is that Missouri and the Midwest are particularly strong overall and Jefferson City, despite ranking poorly in the region, is still above average when compared to small cities across the country."
Regardless of how much we have to spend, there's one thing we can do to help the local economy: shop locally.
For years, we've stressed the importance of local residents spending their money locally. That doesn't mean every penny, but the more you can spend locally, the stronger our local economy will be.
When you support local merchants, you support the community. Local merchants donate to the United Way and other charitable agencies, practically every fund-raising event in town, and sponsor local sports teams.
You'll also be contributing to the local tax base through sales tax. That means helping to improve Jefferson City parks, enhance ambulance services in Cole County, and financing capital improvements in both the city and county.
Over the past year, Jefferson City lost Kmart, Sears, Hastings and Mosers, to name a few. Meanwhile, other local businesses have opened. It's a constant "survival of the fittest" struggle in our free-market economy.
It's up to local businesses to keep their customers and keep their businesses profitable. Consumers aren't going to prop up a bad business just because we tell people to shop local.
But, at the same time, the more money we can keep in our community the better.