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> Actually the focus should be on increasing household discretionary income. The part of a persons income that is left over after all the mandatory expenses of
by chimeracoder 8y ago
> Actually the focus should be on increasing household discretionary income. The part of a persons income that is left over after all the mandatory expenses of food, shelter, tax etc are taken care of.
Arguably the US already is focusing on this; the US has the highest real net disposable income of all OECD countries.
- randomdata 8y ago> the US has the highest real net disposable income of all OECD countries. A higher disposable income does not necessarily lead to a higher discretionary income. If the non-discretionary costs (food, shelter, etc.) are higher than elsewhere, discretionary income could actually be lower than in other countries with lower disposable income.
- chimeracoder 8y ago> A higher disposable income does not necessarily lead to a higher discretionary income. If the non-discretionary costs (food, shelter, etc.) are higher than elsewhere, discretionary income could actually be lower than in other countries with lower disposable income. It doesn't necessarily, but it turns out that it does in this case, because the US does have a higher discretionary income than any other OECD country (and is below the median and well below the mean in household debt as well.
- randomdata 8y agoThat's interesting. Where would one go to find data about discretionary income? Disposable income data is readily available, but I wasn't able to find much about discretionary income, including going straight to the OECD which did not reveal anything in my searches.