Re:The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution
by clairity on Saturday June 27, 2020 @10:18PM
(#23666322)
that article makes the point that basically all the savings from food from 1900 went to housing and transportation in 2003.
~75% of 2003 household budgets went to food, housing, transportation, clothing and healthcare ("essentials"). among non-essentials, only ~5% to entertainment.
those are aggregate numbers, so you'd still expect more than 50% of american households to be spending 80-90% of their budgets on the essentials (said differently, the median household is most certainly above the 75% figure because of the highly disproportionate skew of the top 1%).
you could argue that we own too much house and too many cars on average, but i doubt that makes much difference to the big picture, because that's also disproportionately skewed to the top 20%. most american households are still spending most of their money on real essentials.
~75% of 2003 household budgets went to food, housing, transportation, clothing and healthcare ("essentials"). among non-essentials, only ~5% to entertainment.
those are aggregate numbers, so you'd still expect more than 50% of american households to be spending 80-90% of their budgets on the essentials (said differently, the median household is most certainly above the 75% figure because of the highly disproportionate skew of the top 1%).
you could argue that we own too much house and too many cars on average, but i doubt that makes much difference to the big picture, because that's also disproportionately skewed to the top 20%. most american households are still spending most of their money on real essentials.