US Thanksgiving in figures: turkey, crazy sales and fiscal cliff

After finishing higher on Wednesday, US markets will remain closed for the holiday, gaining support from positive economic data: initial jobless claims last week fell, in line with expectations, and Ben Bernanke said 2013 could be a “very good year” for the US if politicians come up with a solution to bridge the fiscal cliff.

Here’s a day in figures:

114.7 million American households will celebrate.

5,000 New Yorkers from the Sandy storm hardest hit areas are being invited to attend the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

4,000 donated meals have been given to residents and first responders in Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn, Long Island and the Hudson Valley. Many items were donated by big-box stores, including Costco, ShopRite and Walmart.

64,380 grocery stores across the US (2010 data) are expected to be extremely busy.

$12.1 million will the US pay for imported live turkeys, Thanksgiving star dish. 99.8 of them came from Canada.

1 Thanksgiving is No. 1 online shopping day. Cyber-deal surfers have been preparing for a long time, gathering coupons and browsing around. And they know exactly when to click the button.

7 am on Friday is the official opening time for stores the day after Thanksgiving, the Black Friday sales. However, some shops are opening the night before for their early customers, which has aroused a huge polemic among their staff expected to work on that shift. Despite retaliation, some workers of Wal-Mart are planning not to show up, as we explained several days ago.

Sources: US Department of Statistics, USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, NY1 news, US Census Bureau, The White House (video).