I believe more economic data makes us all angrier.
Now you can slice the economic number pie in so many different ways that you’re bound to piss off a bunch of people all the time.
Oh well. That’s how progress happens sometimes.
There are two viral graphics to this effect that have been making the rounds over the past year.
The first is from the National Association of Realtors, which shows that the average age of homebuyers is 59 in 2025:
This has been around since the mid-30s in the early 1980s. This is not a fun trend.
The other shows that the top 10% now accounts for nearly half of all consumer spending:
This is the K-shaped economy where the rich get richer and everyone else fights in the back alley over table scraps.
Both of these paintings anger young people because they show everything. rich old people sucking up all the financial oxygen these days.
Graphs like this are depressing.
Why should young people be excluded from the housing market? Why should the top 10% spend all the money? The K-shaped economy is getting worse!
Here’s the problem with these two viral charts that bother a lot of people: A lot angry – these are not true.
The narratives seem realistic. The rich spend all the money! Old people are buying all the houses!
But actually this is not true.
NAR data is based on a survey. Sometimes polls are wrong. Guess who doesn’t answer surveys anymore? Youth! Who does? Old people!
Connor O’Brien He discovered that the 59-year figure was not confirmed by other data sources:
O’Brien explains:
Much larger government-run surveys, such as the gold-standard American Housing Survey and the American Community Survey, show no increase in the age of the typical homebuyer since the pandemic, when NAR’s median age estimate became completely vertical. My analysis of American Housing Survey data reveals that the average buyer in 2023 is 42. A similar estimate using data from the 2023 American Community Survey shows the average age at 41, unchanged for more than a decade.
Surprisingly, the average age of homebuyers hasn’t changed much this decade. This is despite one of the biggest affordability shocks in housing history.
The data also doesn’t match the chart showing that 50% of spending is in the top 10%.
Ernie Tedeschi A much lower number emerged:
It’s actually lower than before the pandemic.
Matthew Klein accepts:
According to joint BEA-BLS estimates, the top 1% of households by disposable income consistently account for only 2-3% of total PCE, while the groups immediately below them (95th-99th and 90th-95th) consistently account for approximately 9% of PCE each. In other words, top-income households typically spend about twice as much as would be expected from a perfectly egalitarian distribution, even though their income is about 3.5 times the maximum egalitarian outcome. Meanwhile, the bottom 80% of the income distribution is consistently responsible for about two-thirds of total consumer spending, while the bottom 60% is responsible for about 42%. The viral claim that the top 10% of earners are somehow responsible for half of all consumer spending is not even remotely consistent with official data.
Tedeschi also shows that low-income households spend more than the viral chart shows:
Multiple spending surveys show that low-income household spending will perform at least on par with high-income household spending in 2025. Household income below $50,000 reported The spending increase is 5% by 2025, compared to 4.6% for households earning over $100,000. When adjusted for inflation retail expenses for lower-income households, it grew slightly slower than for upper-income households in 2023 and 2024, with the gap widening closer to 2025; low- and high-income consumption grew at similar rates. This is consistent with: delayed but larger and more reliable government dataThis shows that the share of the top income quintile in total expenditure is 22.8% in 2024; this is down from 23.4% in 2023 and below the recent peak of 23.9% in 2016 (economist Antoine Levy has a useful in-depth look at the data). Here).
This data doesn’t fit the narrative, does it?
I’ll be honest – I hit both of these viral charts. It would make sense that only older people could afford to buy a house. It would also make sense that the rich basically carry the economy.
Of course, housing affordability is still an issue. Income inequality is real.
Is it much more expensive for young people to buy a house these days? Definitely.
Are the top 10 percent richer than the bottom 90 percent? Yes.
The top 10% control almost 70% of the wealth in this country.
But it’s not as bad as you think right now.
Don’t be upset by economic data.
Further Reading:
Rich Old People
