Washington, D.C., America’s Shopping Capital?

  • Share
  • Read Later
Tom Schierlitz / Getty Images

TIME Moneyland has discovered why nothing seems to get done in our nation’s capital these days: Everyone’s too busy buying shoes.

Bundle.com, a site that uses aggregated credit card spending data to give users nightlife and shopping recommendations, analyzed spending in the top 100 cities by population and found that Washington, D.C., spent the most of any of them on clothes.

The site used data from the U.S. government, anonymous transactions through Citi and third party data providers to discover that our nation’s capital spent more than any other on clothes, shoes and apparel between March 2010 and March 2011.

(LIST: 12 Things You Should Stop Buying Now)

According to Bundle.com’s findings, residents in our nation’s capital spend a monthly average of $263 on apparel. The top 5 include Arlington, Va., Nashville, Tenn., Scottsdale, Ariz., and Dallas, Texas. The national average for monthly clothes spending is $142.

We didn’t realize chinos and polos cost that much, but Bundle.com explained that there are a number of designer boutiques that have opened in the city, not to mention the contingent of Washington politicos wearing suits every day.

(MORE: The Weird Connection Between Moving and Prosperity)

The dress code across Washington, D.C. has always been dressier than most any other city in the country. Professional women are almost always in skirts, and suits for men at work are the norm. (Tourists, of course, can get away with most anything.)

While the unemployment rate across D.C. has been rising, let’s not forget about the numbers of lobbyists and legislators that are doing just fine for themselves financially and have plenty of disposable income. But maybe they need to get out of Brooks Brothers and back into legislative session.