Middle and lower income families will spend 43 per cent less this festive season than last year due to inflated prices of daily food items, coupled with high education cost and grim job market scenario, says an Assocham survey. The poll was conducted in October in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Chandigarh and Dehradun, among others. It highlights the spending pattern of 1,650 respondents from diverse sectors like automobile, biotechnology, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), energy, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), information technology (IT), pharmaceutical, real estate etc. Over 67 per cent of Delhiites from the middle and lower income group families said the steep rise in the prices of daily food items, costly education, less job scopes salary packages shrinking over the last year spending.