What do Americans buy and where does the money go?

Fantastic post over at NPR about where Americans spend their money.

They took all the data and created these two crystal clear graphs:

WHAT AMERICANS SPEND THEIR MONEY ON (2011)

• Shelter is the biggest at 31.5%
• Women’s clothes are double the spending of Men’s clothes

AMERICAN SPENDING FROM 1949 to 2011

• Food has shrunk in terms of cost because of advances in agriculture — I am still not sold on it being a good thing to have so much food for such cheap prices, as today’s milk doesn’t taste like real milk to me, and only heirloom tomatoes taste like real tomatoes
• Apparel has also gone down in cost because of dirt cheap labour being outsourced overseas — also not sold on this being a good thing 😐
• Housing has jumped quite a bit, taking up a lot more income but houses have also doubled in size from 1000 square feet to 2000 square feet or more (McMansions anyone?)

What do you think about all these numbers?

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