26% Have Yet To Start Their Holiday Shopping

With less than one week left until Christmas, one-in-four Americans hasn’t started holiday gift shopping yet. But quite a few more adults have finished since last week.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American Adults shows that 39% have now finished their holiday gift shopping. That's 18% more who've wrapped up their shopping since a week ago when just 21% were done.  Most (57%) still haven't finished shopping though. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Seventy-two percent (72%) of adults have at least started their shopping, up 11 points from a week ago. Twenty-six percent (26%) still haven’t begun yet, although that’s down from 35% last week.

Women are only slightly more likely than men to have started gift shopping, but there is virtually no difference between the two in terms of who has finished at this point. Married adults are more likely to have started and finished shopping compared to unmarried adults. Those with children in the home are less likely to be finished than those who don't have children living with them.

This year’s shoppers are only slightly behind the pace last year at this time.  In a survey in late November, 47% said they generally finish their shopping early, while 40% said they tend to wait until the last minute.

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The survey of 1,000 Adults nationwide was conducted on December 16-17, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.