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She has a point (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/whitepeopletwitter@sh.itjust.works
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[–] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

According the Bureau of Economic Analysis, that may not necessarily be the case. Agriculture and retail trade, the stuff you mention laypeople purchasing, contributed nothing to less than nothing toward economic growth in the first quarter of 2026. Cars and maybe sofas fall into the durable goods manufacturing category which was the fourth highest contributor.

The top three contributions came from information, the federal government, and professional/scientific/technical services. I don't spend a lot of time keeping up with the finances of those sectors and I'm not an economist so take my words with a couple grains of salt, but to me those things mean an increase in data centers, federal spending (and my guess is not on things useful to a layperson), and services that often end up being business to business transactions.

Obviously there is a place today for companies to sell to the masses, but the comment you responded to was discussing economic growth, and at least to my eyes it looks like most of the growth is indeed going to sectors primarily controlled or benefited from by the wealthy while sectors supported by the masses either contributed less or shrank the most out of any sector in the case of retail trade.

If that trend continues long-term because of a decreasing population then I think that's fine, but if it continues due to a lack of investment because of low profitability, then I think there will be (more) issues.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago*

    Excellent site for backing up my claim, thanks you.

    Consumer spending, as measured by Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis], accounts for 68% of the GDP.

    Top 3 items:

    1. Housing (33.4% of budget): rent, mortgage interests, property taxes, water, electricity, internet, appliances, furniture.

    2. Transportation (17.0%), heavily influenced by commuting habits: cars, fuel.

    3. Food (12.9% of budget), includes groceries and food away from home (restaurants)

    4. Insurance, Pensions, & Healthcare (20.4% combined)

    5. "Discretionary", everything else: clothing, entertainment, education (!), ...

    That's a rather interesting breakdown, and a few items surprised me a lot. In any case, and more to the point I was replying, the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey gives this breakdown:

    • The Top 20% (Highest Income Quintile): Accounts for roughly 35% to 38% of total consumption.

    • The Middle 60% (Middle Class): Accounts for roughly 53% of spendingg

    • The Bottom 20% (Lowest Income Quintile): Accounts for roughly 9% of spending.

    It seems like this survey, since it's based on questionnaires, tends to underreport luxury goods, so in reality it might be skewed more towards the top 20% than what's presented there.

    Even if that's the case, surely it's nowhere near the point of "not being profitable to sell to normal people", as was said.

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