Quote:
Originally Posted by opendoor
The bolded is exactly my point. Talking about $4 coffees, or Netflix, mobile phones, or avocados is completely pointless when people today are spending less on non-essential goods than they did in the past. Just because people now spend money on mobile phones or coffee instead of cigarettes and alcohol doesn't mean they're more wasteful. Some people blow their money on junk but there were lots of people in the '70s that did the same.
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Depends on how you define non-essential goods. As I noted in my earlier post, things like dishwashers, TVs, clothes, furniture, and stereos used to be much more expensive. However, I'm not sure I'd put that stuff in the same category of 'non-essentials' as meals outside the home and airplane vacations. If you have stats showing people don't spend any more on recreational food and drink today than they did in the past, I'd like to see them.
You also need to factor in marriage and work trends. A middle-class couple today has more disposable income than a middle-class couple 40 years ago because they're both likely to work, and because of assortative mating, if one member of the couple has a high-paying job, they likely both do. Conversely, the working poor are much less likely to belong to stable marriages today than in past, and single parents are even worse off.
So some people (the working class, single-income households) have less disposable income than their counterparts in the past. Other people (the educated and two-income households) have a lot more than than their counterparts in the past.