I’d be interested to see how this broke down by income decile. My impression is that spending usually expands to meet income. Americans have a lot of access to short-term credit and use that to cover unexpected expenses.<p>Unfortunately, it looks like a bunch of Americans end up carrying debt month to month.
What do we expect? We demonize saving as "hoarding", talk about "stimulating the economy" by increasing spending, then in the next breath describe <i>the exact same phenenon</i> in negative terms when we talk about people living paycheck to paycheck.<p><i>We disincentivize saving systemically by debasing currency as a rule in order to disincentivize saving.</i><p>When the money is cheap the people and the culture become cheap.