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How many kids will be trick-or-treating this year? How many adults will?
The answer to that question seems to be somewhere in the middle. In 2014, New York City’s population was more than 823,000 people. And in 2014, the average age of the city’s residents was 38.8 years old.
In 2011, the city’s population was about 845,000 people. The average age was 33.2 years old.
It’s no wonder the number of trick-or-treaters has declined this decade, according to the National Retail Federation.
In 2005, the average age of trick-or-treaters reached 9.5 years old. In 2008, the average age for trick-or-treaters was 9.7.
Now, with Halloween being Oct. 31, that 9.7 average is even lower.
And the number of kids in New York, where there’s no trick-or-treating on private homeowners’ property, is down from 39,000 people in 2005 to 35,000 in 2010.
The National Retail Federation says New York’s declining trick-or-treater numbers have a lot to do with “lower cost of living” and a high cost of housing.
“It’s becoming a more expensive city to live in,” says Chris Sargent, an analyst with the Retail Federation.
And people are not trick-or-treating because they want to trick-or-treat.
They’re doing it because they want to have parties and they want to have parties with their friends.
(SOUNDBITE OF RECORDING)
CHRIS SARGENT: Trick-or-treating has its roots in the Celtic “festivities” when you went to a neighborhood and you made your way down to the street to get candy.
DAVID MIRANDA: This is a time, and you can imagine this in, say, ancient America, they’re celebrating. And you’re seeing kids with their neighbors and their neighbors with their kids. And I think that’s what drove it to be that way, you know, and I think, you know, as we move into adulthood we’re seeing the same thing and we’re not even doing it the