[yeetaccount]

Same reason we don’t have stone masons in every town nowadays. Too much time, too much material, not enough customer volume. Can’t operate with today’s (lack of) disposable income and material availability being diluted by an increasing population.

The standard of living has gone up IMHO bc of increased efficiency in the face of dwindling resources. We don’t all live in stone mansions with servants, but a nice apartment built to code as cheaply as possible with electricity, AC and a roomba is by some measures a better life than anyone on the planet had 100 years ago. As a builder, you make more money too.

[0x0nyandesu]

There's actually way more disposable income today than even 100 years ago. We just spend it on things that didn't exist before like car insurance and iPhones.

[advael]

What do you consider "disposable income"?

Car insurance is legally mandatory if you drive a car. If your income is predicated on being able to commute by car (as it is for many Americans, though hopefully a trend toward remote work will ameliorate this somewhat) then your insurance is no more optional than your gas.

People also talk about smartphones as though they're a luxury item, but for most intents and purposes owning one can be viewed as required. Tons of services, including your bank, require a cell phone for authentication, if not to use their services at all. Everyone from your boss to your spouse has an expectation that you can be reached most if not all of the time. I try to avoid being reachable at all times, but this is a luxury I can afford because I'm relatively well-off and technologically adept, and I still can't get around 2FA requirements for everything.

So like, if that stuff is bought with "disposable income", is rent?

[adventured]

Disposable income in the US is at record highs, both at the median and average, inflation adjusted. It has not gone down.

And the median and average for disposable income is a lot higher in the US than in Europe. US disposable income is only comparable to the most affluent nations of Europe: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland.

Americans waste an enormous amount of money on consumer garbage. Until recently it was very common for households to have $150-$200 / month cable or satellite TV plans. It's still common, just slightly less so thanks to Netflix etc. $200-$300 family smartphone plans are common.

Americans also flip in and out of cars frequently, losing huge sums of money doing it. And they buy ridiculously over-priced new vehicles, which they keep for relatively short periods of time.

[rsj_hn]

"Disposable income" is not some vague philosophical term that we have to haggle over. It simply means income minus taxes paid to government.

Please please don't redefine economic terms to suit your intuitive belief about what a word "should" mean because you are wading into an area where you don't know the agreed upon terminology. That impedes communication.

If you want to refer to income after paying necessities, then this is "discretionary income".

[advael]

I wasn't aware this was a technical term, but if we insist on this usage, the post I'm responding to is even less meaningful, because this is drawing a pedantic distinction between money that's tied up in expenses and thus, at any rate, not money that the relevant party is really making decisions about

[0x0nyandesu]

I mean do you really want to compare my disposable income with my great grandparents? They'd hit me up side the head if they knew how much I blow on weed a month and random bullshit like latex Halloween costumes. To them eating out was a luxury they could afford maybe once or twice a year. I eat out like every other day.

Our standards are way higher these days cause the truth is we're all spoiled.

[supermatt]

You keep saying disposable income (money after taxes) when you mean discretionary income (money after necessary expenses such as rent, bills, transportation and food).