[rayiner]

> Health care, housing, and education are the big three drivers of mandatory expenses in most peoples' lives.

BLS says housing, transportation, and food are the top 3. Insurance/pensions is #4, but that also includes car and homeowners insurance and retirement contributions.

Over the past 50 years, both transportation and food got cheaper. Moreover, clothing actually used to be one of the top categories, but that’s fallen off completely.

[throwforfeds]

I've never owned a car since I live in NYC (I'm in my 40s), so the only transportation numbers I'm vaguely familiar with are with the subway. The MTA budget has gone way up over the past 50 years [1] and the cost to build the subway in NYC is hovering in the $2 billion/mile range. This is largely political and bureaucratic, as in Japan and Europe it's about $200 million - $400 million/mile. [2]

So clearly something is going wrong with the way we deal with our mass transit as well if Paris can do things for a fraction of NYC.

[1] https://nypost.com/2017/06/25/it-took-50-years-for-the-mta-t... [2] https://www.city-journal.org/article/why-cant-new-york-contr...

[smallmancontrov]

I should have said "mandatory expense inflation", yes. There are still some difficult problems the economy is making progress on, but the correct attitude towards those is "keep up the good work" and to focus our attention back on the parts which are robbing us of progress as fast as we make it, where costs soar in excess of wage increases: health care, housing, and education.

[JKCalhoun]

Transportation has got cheaper? That seems at odds with what I'm seeing (although I was only 12 years old 50 years ago).

[xyzzyz]

Gas prices have barely changed in inflation adjusted terms over last 50 years, and if anything, the trend is slightly downwards. At the same time, inflation adjusted incomes went up, and cars became significantly more fuel efficient.

[rawgabbit]

I have a hard time believing healthcare expenses is not in the top three.

[daemonologist]

It might be that a lot of the cost doesn't show up in the data because it comes out of your paycheck before it's "yours," in the form of your employer's contribution to health insurance premiums. (Anecdotally this is true for me - "my" portion of premiums would not be in the top three, but the total premiums are #2 after housing (for a while when I had roommates they were #1, which is ridiculous).)

(BLS gets this data from surveys: https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cex/home.htm )

[rayiner]

Correct. You can argue this is money that you’d otherwise get if it wasn’t going to healthcare, and that’s a fair point. But then you have to count that in the top line income.

[Xirdus]

I don't know about the first half of those 50 years, but over the second half (2001-today), transportation - or at least cars - got significantly more expensive. Disappearance of cheap new cars + massive supply reduction of used cars + repair costs of old cars + gas prices.

[shipman05]

Inflation has been high enough that it messes with our perception of things, but I believe the data shows otherwise (at least in the US).

- Disappearance of cheap new cars: You can get entry level Chevys, Kias, and Hyundais for < $25k, which is about $14k in 2001 dollars and many more of those cars will last until 200,000 miles and have safety features only available on luxury cars in 2001.

- Massive supply reduction of used cars: I actually don't have good data on this, but it seems like there's pipeline is still borked from COVID era irregularities. That said, cars these days have much better quality and last longer. A car with more than 100,000 miles in the 90s was near the end of its life. That's a typical listing Facebook marketplace these days.

- Repair costs of old cars: Repairs can be expensive, but again, cars today are much more reliable than they were in the 90s or earlier. Even simple things like recommended oil change frequency changing from 3k miles to 10k miles for most models makes a huge difference in total cost of ownership.

- Gas prices: Gas prices have certainly spiked recently (gee, I wonder why), but the cost of gas in real dollars has been higher several times in the past 25 years (see the second chart here: https://www.macrotrends.net/4453/us-gasoline-prices) It peaked in 2008 over $6 per gallon in 2026 dollars.

[Xirdus]

> You can get entry level Chevys, Kias, and Hyundais for < $25k, which is about $14k in 2001 dollars

For comparison, an entry level car in 2001 was <$9k. That's <$18k in today's dollars.

The extra safety features is part of why transportation has become less affordable, yes.

> I actually don't have good data on this, but it seems like there's pipeline is still borked from COVID era irregularities.

That, plus Obama-era Cash for Cars, plus engines becoming so complicated and expensive to fix that 10+ year old broken cars are scrapped rather than repaired at much higher rates.

You used to be able to buy a car for literally less than $1000 that would last you a few good years with minimal maintenance.

> Repair costs of old cars: Repairs can be expensive, but again, cars today are much more reliable than they were in the 90s or earlier.

Not 5x more reliable, as in requiring 5x fewer engine renovations over 15 years now that it costs 5x more to do so.

[AnnikaL]

I wonder if some of this will reverse once more electric cars are available on the used market, which are cheaper to fuel and require less maintenance. Already some of the explosion of non-luxury EVs with >200 miles range around 2020ish are starting to be available used, albeit a bit more expensive than gas counterparts.

If battery degradation isn't too great, maybe in 10 years people can buy 15 year old EVs that are cheap to maintain and run (for those who can accept the tradeoffs of EVs - and that would reduce demand on ICEVs). We'll see.

[CPLX]

The numbers are just bullshit. The current inflation numbers tell us the price of health insurance is falling for example.

When reality seems to be in conflict with logic, the next step is to question assumptions.

[amanaplanacanal]

Is the cost of health insurance falling because people are settling for worse plans?

[rawgabbit]

I would wager they are non insured and going to the emergency room when desperate. As another poster linked healthcare costs have grown exponentially.

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-or-century-8...

[matwood]

It's a bit like when the inflation basket subs ground beef for steak, and then says food is getting cheaper.

[runako]

Where are you seeing inflation numbers showing health insurance falling?

[CPLX]

The CPI showed health care price dropping by 7% in the most completed numbers, which were June.

It's fucking ridiculous and obviously so. The problem does involve methodology and so on but mostly it's just that "the map is not the territory" to be honest. The CPI is a synthetic measurement.

There are other examples too. It's not just health insurance. For example, interest rates are generally excluded from the CPI. So they don't affect the tracked price of owning a car even if they cause car payments to go up by double-digit percentages. Which has actually happened.

If you want a link though: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.htm

Scroll to health insurance and note that it's showing over a 7% decrease year over year.