Amazing TVs for $100 and Mediocre Educations for $1,000,000
I ran across an earlier version of the above chart from the American Enterprise Institute a few years ago. The chart’s information is a stark reminder of the difficulty of living in America’s ass-backwards economy, where stuff that was once reserved for the rich — cars, electronics, etc. — are cheaper than ever, while essential stuff — healthcare, housing, education — keeps getting more expensive and unattainable.
I would add that the cheap stuff is getting better while the expensive stuff is getting crappier. I can buy a smartphone for $100 that has tons of processing power and a high resolution camera, and I can pay $2,500 a month for a shitty two bedroom apartment or pay $65,000 a year in tuition to receive a guaranteed 4.0 GPA at Yale.
The above charts from a 2012 article in The Atlantic express household expenditures as percentages of total spending. Though the 2012 data is a little dated, it shows trends that continue today of cheaper food and clothing and costlier transportation and housing. The 2012 chart also includes the new category of “insurance, etc.”
The category that stands out for me the most is food. Spending 43 percent of one’s income on food makes a lot of sense in light of what it takes to grow and make food and food’s importance in sustaining life. But now folks spend about as much on food as they do insurance — which makes about as much sense as anything does these days.
This post was first published on Substack.
