The chart is Not spending on food, alcohol, etc. on an Absolute basis, it is a measure of dollars spent on food relative to total dollars spent.

So when you see this chart, you shouldn’t be thinking “oh, the price of food fell” or “oh, we spend less on food now than in the 1920′s, so we should be super skinny”.

Instead you should think, “we spend less on food as proportion of all the dollars we spend,” which could either be because spending on food fell (the numerator), because Incomes Grew (the denominator), or because food spending rose but rose Less than the growth in Income.

Given the level of wealth creation that has happened in the US over the last 100 years, it is largely a rise in Income that is driving the effect that we are seeing in the charts, so that food spending did not Fall, it simply did not rise as much as income. Moreover, the rise in income lead to an increase in Discretionary Consumer Spending, that is, as incomes rose, people spent less (as a percent of total income) on basic necessities, like food, shelter, etc., and more on entertainment, alcohol etc.

It’s actually a little sad that you’re so bad at understanding charts.

I assumed that alcohol would be higher now, yet it was significantly more in 50′s & 60′s. Still possible that actual unit consumption is up with the same % spend, so would be interested if that is the case.

I wonder if later surveys will see a decrease in spending on reading – internet related.

…and what is other!

Good stats.

I think the percentage label for 1918 isn’t supposed to be negative.