Percentage of income spent on necessities…

…has almost halved in the last 100 years

We saw in the previous post that time spent doing household chores has declined massively in recent decades. A similar drop has been seen in the proportion of our income that we spend on necessities (food, cars, clothing, household items, gas/petrol and utilities). This is a direct result of improvements in technology and the political and economic systems that we have built around us in the last century.

This extra money is largely spent on what might be termed ‘luxuries’ - travel, leisure activities and other services that enrich our lives.