After this unrelentingly awful week in US economic news, we should probably refrain from passing along a chart that’s headlined “End of the American Dream”.
But here it is anyway, courtesy of Reuters analyst John Kemp:
Kemp includes Gas & Energy; Food & Beverages; and Clothing & Footwear as the three categories that add up to “basic items” here.
And if you look to the far right, what you’ll see is that after a long period in which the share of Americans’ budgets that went towards these items declined steadily, in 2002 that percentage started rising — and after a blip during the recession, it’s climbing yet again, indicating that this might be part of a longer-term secular trend.
For the whole link go to FT Alpha:http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2011/06/03/582226/a-us-consumption-conundrum/