The top 10% of earners—households making about $250,000 a year or more—are splurging on everything from vacations to designer handbags, buoyed by big gains in stocks, real estate and other assets.
Those consumers now account for 49.7% of all spending, a record in data going back to 1989, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics. Three decades ago, they accounted for about 36%.
The top-level post uses a gift link. When it runs out, there is an archived copy of the article.
In many areas of the US, this just means both parents work and have solidly middle-class (but by no means extravagant) incomes. My wife and I both work and we can cover the mortgage, all the expenses related to our kid, home ownership expenses, modest savings, etc. We are certainly not buying luxury cars or Gucci bags. Our big spends involve housing, healthcare costs, food costs.
I’m not sure who these people are who are affording discretionary purchases of hobby related stuff and luxury goods. That’s probably more like the 1-2%. Either that or people are amassing debt so they can look the part and “keep up with the Joneses”.
A friendly reminder that articles like this serve to create infighting among the worker class.
Someone earning $250,000 is definitely rich, but they’re nowhere even close to the level of rich that makes wealth distribution problematic. And they’re probably working for that income.
Check out Wealth Shown to Scale (Archive link here because apparently the page is down).
Everyone who isn’t a billionaire ought to be on the same side: against billionaires. But the WSJ publishes stuff like this to make you direct your ire at doctors and lawyers instead of at the people leeching from society.
To expand further on what you’re saying, the problem with the linked article’s mathematical/statistical analysis is that it uses a slightly more sophisticated version of misleadingly using “average”/mean in a context where median would be more appropriate.
Specifically, they talk about the spending of the top 10% in the aggregate, and point to the threshold of when a household tips into that top decile. Well, that aggregated number is itself heavily skewed towards the higher end of that spectrum, where the people in the 99th percentile are contributing a lot more weight than those in the 90th.
Here are the cutoffs for income thresholds to hit each percentile at or above 90:
90: $235k
91: $246k
92: $260k
93: $275k
94: $295k
95: $316k
96: $348k
97: $391k
98: $461k
99: $632kNote that this doesn’t even get into the 0.5% or 0.1%, which skew things even further. Even without that level of granularity, you can see that the median in this group is about $305k while the mean is closer to $350k.
When you include the billionaires, the difference skews even further.
That’s the math error at the center of this thesis. The facts reported might be true, but in a way that groups things together misleadingly.
Reminded me of this doublespeak class warfare article from November: Rich people are dominating holiday travel - Most hotel guests this season will be people making six-figure incomes, analysts say.
Households earning at least six figures a year are expected to make up the largest share of holiday travelers this season — 45%, up from 38% in 2023, according to a recent survey by the consulting firm Deloitte. And they’re on track to make up a majority of paid lodging customers, expanding their ranks as hotel guests from 43% last season to 52% now.
“Travelers are looking to invest in upgrades and experiences that will make the holiday memorable,” said Kate Ferrara, vice chair for U.S. transportation, hospitality and services at Deloitte.
This was an example of pure psychological warfare to get people to spend more money at hotels. “Well, those ‘rich’ $100k earners are upgrading their stay, I will to!”
Corpo “news” is such shit.
yup. I will admit though that as you get higher a larger percentage of folks think they are rich and support the wrong side. Had so many docotors complain about taxes and talk conservative politics wise and im like dudes you are just over the top tax bracket. the problem is there should be more brackets that go higher not that the top should be decreased. Heck your bracket can’t be decreased till its not the top one.
Yep. They’re getting the same propaganda and falling for it too. The entire idea of the “middle class” is to get workers with something to think workers with nothing are the enemy, and get them to ignore the leeches with nearly everything.
still amazes me that the brackets end in the low six figure territory when we have billionaires. I remember a supposed quote from the head of the irs back in ww2 times about how his job was to figure out elvises taxes. Like because he was the highest paid guy. Man to have rich folks proud to pay taxes as a patriotic duty. Those were the days.
That’s only because no one else has spare money to spend.
It doesn’t depend on them they’re just THE ONLY ONES WITH FUCKING MONEY. Title almost makes it seem like they’re cucking for rich people. Yeah no shit they’re the main consumers they’re the only ones who can afford to.
Fuck rich people, and fuck you if you like them. I hate rich people so much.
See my other post in here for some context. Someone earning $250,000 a year is probably still working for that income. They’re rich, sure, but they aren’t the problem nor are they your enemy. WSJ publishes stuff like this to keep the working class infighting, like crabs trying to climb out of a bucket.
Someone that makes 250k a year is not rich.
Depends on how you define rich, I suppose. The reason I used that number is that’s what the article is defining as the top 10%.
That’s because they’ve seized all the money.
More significantly, a tiny chunk of them have seized the bulk of the money and other assets. The 90th percentile worker sees the insecurity that they’ll experience with a job loss. Somebody in the top 0.1% is likely a rentier who can live off the rest of us and not care.
The highest earning 10% also have about 67% of the wealth, so they are actually underperforming compared to the rest of the population. It’s just that they have all the money.
they are actually underperforming compared to the rest of the population
They always do, which is a big part of why the “FairTax[sic]” is such a scam.
And by “always,” I mean literally without exception, because the difference between the working class and owner class is defined by it.
Just passing a bunch of money around at the top.
What’s funny is, I guarantee all of these people will say without flinching, “I need more money.”
Thanks for the number, do you have a link where you got it from? I suspected something like this might be the case, but I couldn’t find a source easily online.
Here: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/
I switched the table to Shares (%) and added up the latest values of the first 3 columns.
“Depends” is the wrong way to frame it.
Essentially, this means we’re serving them.
I keep trying to explain, billionaires aren’t the only issue. Stop looking up to millionaires, too. They’re both ripping us off.
Don’t ever go to bat for them unless you want to be a useful idiot.
They’re literally trying to build an economy that starves regular people out of it. They don’t care anymore, they want it all.
A whole ass country full of fucking Veruca Salts.
Well, there’s 2 Verucas running the white House right now. I’m sure they care about fixing this issue.
What an insidious way to frame poverty and wealth disparity.
I cannot remember a time a headline filled me with such hatred and anger toward a person.
I hope Ms. Ensign gets exactly what she deserves.
Her WSJ biography REEKS of boot licking and discredited economic theory:
Regular people hoping to become millionaires and billionaires
Ah yes the temporarily embarrased millionaires.
It’s fitting imo, because they’ve stolen the wealth and think that Luigi’s case is just a freak accident rather than the upcoming Bell Riots.
On a side note, I always figured the Bell Riots that were supposed to be back in September of our timeline were just a hair delayed and slightly miscalculated.
Maybe records became fuzzy due to the whole WWIII issue.
Good call
Maybe if you didn’t fucking rob the other 90%, the numbers would be different.
Exactly. They seem to be concluding that only the wealthy can bear the burden of spending money for the rest of us?
$250K isn’t that outrageous of a household income (or at least it shouldn’t be); literally two good white collar jobs would reach that point in the coastal cities.
The bigger thing at issue is to not frame it as 90% vs 10%, it’s literally 99% vs 1% — if not 99.9% vs. 0.1% if we are really talking about the ‘disconnected from reality wealthy’.
That’s the line that the wealthiest amongst us are trying to draw, in order to build class disunity. A white-collar household pulling in $250K has a lot more in common with a blue-collar household pulling in $65K, than they do the oligarchy above them.
Yeah, $250k in an average to high cost of living area is middle class comfortable. Not rich.
Calling that income rich is a tactic to get the middle class to identify with the billionaires and support regressive policies.
As someone who has lived both experiences, you are absolutely correct.
It’s not really robbing when the useful idiots are proud to give up their wealth and power.
Look at all the dumb shit people subscribe to that they could be getting for free. Look at all the dumb shit they waste their money on (like doordash) while complaining they need more.
It’s a cultural problem, and the average worker is proud to be a part of it.
Whenever you suggest they could be doing something differently, like using free streaming sites instead of netflix, they will look at you like you’re worse than a pedophile because you dared to suggest they’re wasting money.
The average worker has no choice but to funnel their money up the wealth chain through rent and mortgages. That’s the bulk of it.
Wrong. We can all choose to live and appreciate more modest lives.
I haven’t eaten at a restaurant or bought a video game in years, for example. If more people appreciated what they have instead of always wanting more, these problems would be solved overnight.
through rent and mortgages.
The housing market is complete bullshit, but workers also have themselves to blame for accepting renting as normal. We need to discourage renting and encourage ownership. Unfortunately, in order to do that people need to be willing to live more modest lifestyles outside of major cities. Supply and demand doesn’t go away just because we want it to.
Wealthiest nation in the world (by a large margin if I may add), regular people are struggling to get by and your solution is “just be more frugal”? I’d imagine if you’re the wealthiest nation in the world you can afford some luxuries but I guess not according to you. Also, if you’re so wealthy where does all that wealth go?
regular people are struggling to get by and your solution is “just be more frugal”?
Not quite. We need to get off the consumer bandwagon and learn to appreciate what we have.
People are miserable because they’re constantly trying to “keep up with the jones’” which means wasting money on bullshit they don’t need and have been conditioned to want.
Until the working class learns to appreciate different things, we shouldn’t expect anything to change or improve.
I ended up reading your other comments. You’re out of touch with reality and there’s nothing I could say that others haven’t already brought up, and since you’re not listening to them I doubt you’ll listen to me. So the only thing I can add is that you should start practicing what you’re preaching and get off the internet because the internet is a luxury. Then again I imagine you won’t have a problem justifying your own “wasting money on bullshit” because you can afford it.
Its not the workers who are to blame. Its the folks who aspires to live on “passive income” who used housing as a vehicle to steal wealth from the younger generations. I finished high school during the GFC and everything about the housing market has been fucked since then.
Its not the workers who are to blame.
No, workers absolutely bear some of the blame. They choose to go along with consumerism and attack anyone who goes against it.
Mate, I have an electrical engineering degree and work for a big chip design company. Wages have stagnated to the point where I can never afford afford to buy a house, and rent eats nearly half my wages. I live a modest life and the only time I travelled was when I was working full time in Europe. Never been on a holiday. There’s literally nothing I could have done to fix that except find a squat to live, or put up with share houses into my thirties. No family I can live with. Its out of many peoples control. The house I rent is valued at 1.2 million in Melbourne. It was 370k 15 years ago.
where I can never afford afford to buy a house
A house where? In a suburb for $250,000+? You know you can buy houses for <$100k, right? Some people’s cars cost more than my house, but I don’t need more.
The house I rent is valued at 1.2 million in Melbourne.
Yeah, you’re part of the problem. You need to be willing a more modest lifestyle. Ask yourself this, if you need more, how do others survive with significantly less? They probably don’t live in major cities, for one. If you think you’re entitled to live in a major city, then you’re part of the problem.
You are commenting from an American perspective. There are no houses in Australian capital cities for less than 100k. And there are no job opportunities for many professions outside the capital cities.
Is there any room for ya’ll to spread out and build more?
And there are no job opportunities for many professions outside the capital cities.
That’s not how jobs work, mi amigo. The more people that live in a given area, the more jobs will be available. You might not get paid as much, but to make the argument that there’s no work or that your job can’t be done remotely is false.
BECAUSE! They.Stole.all.the.MONEY!
Wow, an actually important economic statistic, here on Lemmy? 👏
