[bazzargh]

One of the graphs struck me as odd - percent of per capita disposable income spent on food, falling. The problem with that is inequality - it's been widely discussed that most of the gains of the last decade have been made by the richest, while wages for the poorest have stagnated. But that means the percent of disposable income spent on food by the poorest might not be falling at all?

It turns out USADA do have that graph as well (in fact it's the one right below the one in the article, taken from http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics...) http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/detail.a... - for the lowest quintile of the US population, the % of disposable income spent on food has gone up from 32% to 34% from 2006 to 2014.

The abundant future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed?

[smac8]

> while wages for the poorest have stagnated. But that means the percent of disposable income spent on food by the poorest might not be falling at all

No, that's not true at all. If wages are stagnant and goods are getting cheaper, then you are getting richer. I see this "stagnant wages" meme brought up all the time, but I don't see why nobody ever talks about cost of goods. Ex: Even the poorest today in the US can afford amazingly complex cellphones and computers, which was unthinkable 25 years ago (if we were to somehow make one of the same capacity)

[dragonwriter]

> If wages are stagnant and goods are getting cheaper, then you are getting richer. I see this "stagnant wages" meme brought up all the time, but I don't see why nobody ever talks about cost of goods.

Because the wages are stagnant in real (that is, inflation-adjusted) terms, which means that the cost of goods is already considered.

[ianai]

Considered for the most part. You will expectedly still be able to find goods and services that cost considerably more or less than in past, real terms.

[mahyarm]

Cost of some goods are smaller, but the big chunk goods in the USA have been going up a lot: Healthcare, Education and Housing.

[woodandsteel]

Higher education has been getting much more expensive, and in many areas of the country, so has housing.