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March Consumer Spending Hits Three-Year Low For Average Americans
In “sad but true” news, we recently reported that even as wage growth for 80% of America’s workforce has sputtered and stalled, there’s never been a better time to be a “supervisor”:
With more than three quarters of US workers trapped in what we will call “wage growth hell,” and whose only chance at seeing a pay hike appears to rest on holding out for a promotion that’s probably not forthcoming, it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise that self-reported consumer spending hit a three-year low for March last month and has trended sharply lower this year when compared to 2014.
Of course those with higher incomes hiked their spending by 75% more than those with middle- and lower-incomes. Here’s more via Gallup:
Average self-reports of spending in March increased by $7 among upper-income Americans -- those with annual household incomes of $90,000 a year or more -- to reach $144. Among middle- and lower-income Americans, those with incomes that are less than $90,000, spending increased by $4 from February to reach $75 in March.
The broad trend shows spending recovering after reaching lows during the Great Recession and its aftermath, but for the first months of 2015, spending has been lower than it was for most months last year.
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And with March's NFP report casting considerable doubt on the viability of the "waiter and bartender" recovery which, as WSJ will tell you, has been a veritable linchpin for the US economy, we're not extremely optimistic about the propensity for the middle class to ramp up their spending habits going forward.
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But where do average Americans figure in an economy of the rich, by the rich, for the rich?
The 0.1% have more wealth than the bottom 90% in the land of the free - it was well earned with captured regulators and phony, manipulated markets.
Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
Honore de Balzac
True, and I would like to Thank the article for reminding me that I need to drastically cut back spending in order to get the great reset underway.
That's un-American, you must spend yourself into a cardboard box mansion so the government can take care of you....
average american is 30 lbs overweight mexican
Start working at home with Google ! Its by-far the best mixed bag of goods I've had. Last Thursday I got a trademark new Bmw since getting a check for $6474 this - 4 weeks past. I began this 8-months ago and immediately was coming with house at least $77 per hour. I work through this connection, go.to tech marker for work detail.... www.globe-report.com
It's a bitch when snow falls in the winter time.
The .01% have successfully turned america into the land of the freeloaders and home of debt slaves. However the 90% still have not figured that part out.....yet.
When the SNAP cards stop working, they might get it...
When those SNAP cards stop working is the true beginning of the end. RIOTS not far behind, maybe hrs. Be prepared, Guns, ammo, food, shelter. Get to know your neighbors you will need them.
The .01% are federal/state/local governments and their cronies.
Viva la Murica! Social benefits for the sheep QE for the rich!
and nada for you. Just pay up serf! Others are counting on you!
i aint spending shit, im recycling rubbers...
"Rich?!"
Rich builders and producers, or rich thieves?
The banksters need to repay us.
I am buying as much silver as possible while cleaning up ancillary debt (other than the mortgage I am stuck in). My family really appreciates the additional time all the lying and obfuscation useful idiots like Larry Summers provide in times like these.
I am curious not as to the amount people are spending, but what they are spending it on. Aren't sales to big box stores dropping?
I am curious not as to the amount people are spending, but what they are spending it on.
Iwatches?
Stocks.
Family household expenses adjusted for daily average
Total: $131.45 per day / $48,000 yearly
Which is just about what you have left after taxes working a $60k a year job. A $60k a year job makes you working poor. You have nothing left over outside paying for essentials. Discretionary spending is impossible unless you are just exponentially expanding your debt. In order to have anything close to a middle class lifestyle you have to be pulling in six to seven thousand dollars a month in after tax income. Which means you have to be making $90k+ and that means there is no middle class because $90k+ puts you into the upper 10% bracket.
bout 3000/month 500/misc
livin like a king
whats the problem?
don't conform
enjoy!
I'll add in for the average American family of four.
$10 phones cable internet
$10 property tax if you own a home
$5 vacation
$5 home maintenance
$8 for children's clothing, sports activities, music lessons, books, and other school fees.
Which adds $38 to your $132. Which brings us to $170 x 365 = $62,000
Now your taxes
Fed 15-22%
S.S. Medicare 7.8%
State income tax 3-6% unless you live in Texas, Nevada, Washington, or Florida. Nobody lives in Wyoming, Alaska, or South Dakota so they don't count.
Just to round it off well say 25% of your money is gone. Your family has to pull in $84,000 gross just to live average. Now go buy something and get sales tax of say 5%. Hope you never have a major bill on your house, new roof plumbing problems, or have to put your kids through college, and you better hope you never lose that 40-50k year job, and the benefits that go along with it. Like the health insurance for your family that's going to run you $12,000 a year.
bullish
dayum....WTF work...
I'm saving money on condoms by only having sex with men
Big news on CNBC: Michelle O speaks at the Easter Egg Hunt.
The rich get richer, and everyone else can suck it: Obamanomics.
The population is old. There isn't any return on income permitted within the new normal. Fraud is everywhere and big fraudulent crimes are sanctioned by the government. Beef has doubled since 2008. There is one hell of a hot dry spot where California used to exist. WTF did you think the economy would do?
This shitcan is accelerating towards the bottom. Obama might as well go play video games as America burns.
Golf. He likes to play golf.
I've called bullshit on this number many times. $75 a day is just over $27,000 a year. If you are actually working a $50k job, you don't have $27k a year in free cash left over to spend. If you are spending $75 a day on necessities, which is almost what food and gasoline cost for a working family, then you have no cash left over for discretionary goods.
Now if you are a useless eater living off disability payments, then maybe you do have $27k in free cash to spend.
I think it is about time that we start making the freeloaders living off disability actually disabled. If you park in a handicap spot, you aren't supposed to be able to walk without help. If you get out of a car and start walking normally, well you deserve to have both your legs broken.
I think it's about time to stand in Walmart parking lots with lead pipes. See somebody pay with EBT, wait out in the parking lot and take their groceries. It isn't theft because they already stole the money from you to pay for the stuff in the first place.
You need to hook up with the flash mobs robbing Walmart and leave your fellow distressed citizen alone.
I agree 100% however critical thinking like this in the future might get you 10 years in a FEMA camp.
I fundamentally 'agree' with what you say, but why be sol hard on the average 'Joe'. He learned to 'Game The System' from the 1%-ers with their 'trickle-down' economics. If it were me, I'd be lugging those lead pipes to Wall and Broad and Pennsylvania Ave.---not to mention 'K' street. IMO the "useless eaters" are the ones who 'lead'.
don't need graphs,charts et al, just check out lowes, home depots midday/midweek and the stench of economic death is overwhelming.
I was the only customer in my local Lowes early this am.
yes, but confidence is up.
I haven't been able to take a proper shit for 2 weeks.
Please help.
You should move to Venezuela, since you apparently don't need toilet paper.
Now put that next to a 3 month average of oil prices and I'll bet its a complete match.
Must be why NIG-TARDS and PINKO FASCIST COMMIES are buying equities today. Woe to him who has defrauded the 'markets'. He has written his own death warrant...
dupe