The Consumer Expenditure Survey for 2023 came out today. Here's how we've been doing since the pandemic:
This is a direct survey of how much money we've been spending. Short answer: After inflation, we're still spending more. And it's not because of debt. Since 2019, total debt per adult has increased a grand total of $99 (adjusted for inflation). That compares to increased spending of more than $2,000 per adult.
And the spending numbers are the same by income level. Spending has increased for the poor, the rich, and the middle.
Stimulus money has run out. Savings have been depleted. But they worked when we needed them: employment has gone up; prime-age labor force participation has gone up; wages have gone up; and over the past year inflation has quieted. As a result, we have more money and we're spending more money.
Bottom line: The economy is good and things are better for everyone.
things are better for everyone
they'll be even better when punkin' mcpornhumper is out of my media feed
+1
And the mainstream media outlets are brimming with stories about how CONSUMER CONFIDENCE HAS PLUMMETED!
This afternoon, I saw a story from Business Insider titled "People have a new reason to feel bad about the economy." Why? Because despite unemployment being at an all-time low for more than a year, people are "suddenly" concerned about jobs. Or, as the article puts it, "The labor-market vibes are not great."
Where exactly do those "vibes" come from? Maybe some curious reporter might dig into that and get their outlet to report it, instead of just running clips of whatever Trump and Vance say -- day after day after day -- about how terrible the economy is.
While Kevin indicates the growth in spending has increased at all income levels, I can't help but thinking the booming stock market (up almost 20% this year alone) has made many people feel wealthier and thus more willing and able to spend.
By how much have emissions declined?
Things are better for most
“Things are better for everyone” is the sort of fatuous comment that the MAGA beast feeds on
Sounds like bad news for Democrats.
How, exactly, do they know the race of the people in this dataset?
Um... Pretty sure that's the wrong graphic for this piece since there are no dollar amounts on the graph, it's divided into ethnic groups instead of income groups, and it really looks like it goes better with the next article, which -does- discuss ethnic groups.
(Sigh) THIS IS THE WRONG GRAPH! I went to the link for the Consumer Expenditure Survey for 2023, downloaded the article, read it, and even searched it for that mythical ethnic breakdown. Here are the results for a search of the terms accompanying the trendlines:
Asian: 0
White: 0
Black: 0
Hispanic: 1 - and it's in a paragraph that refers to other data products.