3 ms·
You might call me crazy, but at least in 2024, consumers spent ~1% less of their income on expenses than 2019[2], which suggests that 2024 is more affordable th
by WarmWash 9mo ago
You might call me crazy, but at least in 2024, consumers spent ~1% less of their income on expenses than 2019[2], which suggests that 2024 is more affordable than 2019.
This is from the BLS consumer survey report released in dec[1]
[1]https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm
[2]https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/consumer-expenditures/2019/ https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/consumer-expenditures/2019/
Prices are never going back to 2019 numbers though
- gowld 9mo agoThat's an improper analysis. First off, it's dollar-averaging every category, so it's not "% of income", which varies based on unit income. Second, I could commit to spending my entire life with constant spending (optionally inflation adjusted, optionally as a % of income), by adusting quality of goods and service I purchase. So the total spending % is not a measure of affordability.
- WarmWash 9mo agoAlmost everyone lifestyle ratchets, so the handful that actually downgrade their living rather than increase spending would be tiny. This part of a wider trend too, where economic stats don't align with what people are saying. Which is most likley explained by the economic anomaly of the pandemic skewing peoples perceptions.
- twoodfin 9mo agoWe have centuries of historical evidence that people really, really don’t like high inflation, and it takes a while & a lot of turmoil for those shocks to work their way through society.