then and now

[miriamjoyce]

This is a fascinating little  comparison of spending patterns between 1950 and 2005.

I think the summary up top does a bad job of highlighting the key points--entertainment spending has increased a little yes, but much less than spending on apparel, personal insurance, and food has dropped. And spending on reading/education has also increased. The

Comments

[hyoter]

my question about this is where the difference between income and spending is going? i can believe that the average family in 1950 in cleveland was putting $5,000 into savings. there is no way the cleveland 2005 family is putting $12,000 into savings. so there must be a bunch of categories that are not listed in this comparison to explain where this money is going these days.

perhaps paying off college loans, credit card and other sorts of debt are part of the answer. i know fewer average americans went to college in 1950 and most of my average friends are still paying off that debt well in excess of the $1000 listed in the reading/education section of the comparison.

[miriamjoyce]

A good point. Savers Americans are not. At least not now.

I think though, that we can't assume just because we know median income and median spending that those mean lots of people have $12K extra. Usually people with lower incomes spend a larger percentage of their incomes, so I think the wealthier people are probably saving and/or spending on other categories in excess of $12K, while most folks have far less margin to work with.