You might call me crazy, but at least in 2024, consumers spent ~1% less of their income on expenses than 2019[2], which suggests that 2024 is more affordable than 2019.

This is from the BLS consumer survey report released in dec[1]

[1]https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm

[2]https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/consumer-expenditures/2019/

Prices are never going back to 2019 numbers though

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gowld 3 hours ago | parent [-]

That's an improper analysis.

First off, it's dollar-averaging every category, so it's not "% of income", which varies based on unit income.

Second, I could commit to spending my entire life with constant spending (optionally inflation adjusted, optionally as a % of income), by adusting quality of goods and service I purchase. So the total spending % is not a measure of affordability.

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WarmWash 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Almost everyone lifestyle ratchets, so the handful that actually downgrade their living rather than increase spending would be tiny.

This part of a wider trend too, where economic stats don't align with what people are saying. Which is most likley explained by the economic anomaly of the pandemic skewing peoples perceptions.

	▲	twoodfin an hour ago \| parent [-]
		We have centuries of historical evidence that people really, really don’t like high inflation, and it takes a while & a lot of turmoil for those shocks to work their way through society.