> Thinking about the “overall economy” increasingly means focusing on the spending of the rich, and ignoring the poor and struggling. A consequence of increasing inequality is the rich make up more and more consumer spending.

It means increasingly focusing on the spending of the rich, because the population is increasingly richer. Proportion of families making more that 150k (in 2024 dollars) has gone from 5% in 1967 to 33% in 2024, while both middle class (50k-150k) and poor (<50k) have decreased. [1]

[1] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dtoi!,f_auto,q_auto:...

Great example. The population as a whole is richer like you say, and also the richest 10% account for half of consumer spending, compared to 36% 30 years ago. [1] So yes, consuming spending has become more of a metric of the wealthy’s spending habits.

No single metric tells the whole story, and by taking them in isolation it’s quite easy to lose the forest for the trees.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/us-economy-strength-ri...