Americans spend nearly a billion dollars dressing up their pets for Halloween

The number that stops you in the National Retail Federation's Halloween survey is not the headline one. It is the line item underneath: Americans expect to spend nearly a billion dollars on costumes for their pets.

The headline first

Total Halloween spending came in at a record $13.1 billion in the most recent survey, up from $11.6 billion the year before and past the previous record of $12.2 billion. 73 percent of those asked said they planned to celebrate, roughly the same share as the year before — so the increase is people spending more, not more people taking part.

Where it goes

$4.3 billion on costumes: $2 billion of it on adults, $1.4 billion on children, and just under $1 billion on pets. Decorating accounts for another $4.2 billion, with 78 percent of respondents saying they decorate the house.

The most popular pet costume is a pumpkin

The survey asks, and the answer has an order: a pumpkin (9.8 percent), a hot dog (5.4), a bumblebee (4), then a ghost and a superhero tied at 3.1. Which is to say the winning idea is to make the animal look like the vegetable already sitting on the stoop.

What the figure is and is not

It is a survey of intentions carried out for the NRF by Prosper Insights & Analytics, not a count of receipts: it measures what people say they are about to spend. And it is the most recently published one — the NRF releases the survey each September, so the figure for this year is not out yet.

For a city that treats 31 October as an outdoor event, the composition is the interesting part. Costumes and decorations together are two thirds of the money, and both are things bought to be seen by other people.