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How does the growth and concentration of wealth in the hands of billionaires affect that data? An average doesn’t seem like a reliable stat in this context.
by nsomaru 6y ago
How does the growth and concentration of wealth in the hands of billionaires affect that data? An average doesn’t seem like a reliable stat in this context.
- jrochkind1 6y agoI don't think relatively few billionaries would effect this kind of average much mathematically. But I'm not really sure how they calculate this number in the first place, the USDA page's only citation is "for more information contact", which is kind of lame. It seems likely that it's based on a survey sample though. It makes sense to me though; we have whole categories of expense that our grandparents just didn't have, they had a lot less stuff than we have. But they needed about the same number of calories. (On the other hand, I bet average % of income spent on rent has gone up...) Apparently Americans also spend less % of income on food than most other countries, which is kind of odd. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/02/389578089/your-grandparents-spent-more-of-their-money-on-food-than-you-do https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/02/389578089/yo... For this discussion, the reason it matters that less % of income is spent on groceries -- is that it makes a CPI based on groceries not as good a metric of relative buying power overall.