Americans are spending less on clothing • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#231

Post by PeterisP » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:45 PM UTC

freejulian wrote: post #218

prostoalex wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article seems to operate on a different premise. In sentence 2, "At a time when the economy is growing, unemployment is low, wages are rebounding and consumers are eager to buy..." Do you think they're looking at the wrong economic data?

As always, depends on how this data is being measured. Unemployment is low, but the labor force participation rate is also low. Are the jobs good quality? Wages are rebounding? I haven’t seen any evidence of this. There’s many people asking if the Phillips curve even works any more. If there had been any uptick in wages it’s a very recent uptick and hardly a trend yet.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect that you (or most other people) would not personally see any evidence of wage growth if it's happening.

In essence, if there's a 2% growth in average real wages (which would be a major change), then it generally would happen with, say, 80% of people experiencing no change or even a decrease (i.e. nominal growth slower than inflation), and a 20% minority, usually disproportionally concentrated in particular industries and locations, experiencing a significant (e.g. 10%) growth. And, this growth often is associated with a change in position, level or industry - most of the impact is not by the same job paying more, but by slightly less people working the low-paying job and by slightly more people working the high paying job.

So no matter if real growth is happening or not, personal evidence of the majority would not, could not show it unless it's on a very long timescale or the growth is sudden and rapid - you have to look at the aggregates to see if it's happening.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#232

Post by ryanianian » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:45 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #199

freejulian wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these explanations are rather complicated. I think the simplest explanation is the best: people don't have the free money to spend on clothing. This is evidenced by the following facts: 1) Wages have been stagnant 2) Cost of living has been increasing well beyond the stated 2% rate of inflation.

That doesn't explain why people in the poorest countries dress better than Americans. People living in the slums of India/Nigeria/Brazil are more likely to have a collared shirt and dress pants than an American going to work in an office.

This.

I see two things happening here: (1) American spending less on clothing and (2) Americans having less self-pride in their attire and presentation.

I've spent a fair amount of time in Latin American countries, and a real sure-fire way to identify tourists is to look for people poorly-dressed or those who look like they just don't care about how they look.

E.g., despite much of Mexico being quite hot, you will almost never see a local Mexican wearing shorts, even on beaches. Tee-shirts maybe but almost always a freshly-washed button-up shirt. (Or a swimsuit if they're swimming obviously.) This is true of other Latin countries too in my travels. It's really humbling to see.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#233

Post by mc32 » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:48 PM UTC

freejulian wrote: post #164

randcraw wrote: post #88

IMHO there are three clear causes for this trend: 1) US business fashion is increasingly casual. Ties, skirts, suits, coordinated outfits, scarves, leather soled shoes -- all are passe, even in button down East Coast Fortune 100 companies (other than for aspiring managers or those in banking/finance). 2) Color is passe. Shades of black and grey dominate wardrobes, especially in large cities. Thus fewer accessories ar…

All these explanations are rather complicated. I think the simplest explanation is the best: people don't have the free money to spend on clothing. This is evidenced by the following facts: 1) Wages have been stagnant 2) Cost of living has been increasing well beyond the stated 2% rate of inflation.

The article mentions that despite prices going down, not up, people are still buying fewer clothes. Not sure if they are counting skus or expenditure, my guess is expenditure, so if prices per article are going down (H&M vs Levi's), then of course total spending on clothing will go down, even while consumption remains the same.

In any case, to me it means less waste.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#234

Post by ryanianian » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:48 PM UTC

mertd wrote: post #223

rb808 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't explain why people in the poorest countries dress better than Americans. People living in the slums of India/Nigeria/Brazil are more likely to have a collared shirt and dress pants than an American going to work in an office.

They might all have a suit but do they have "more" outfits than Americans?

Probably fewer "outfits" (count of pants or shirts).

But in my travels the outfits are all of quality (highest that the person could afford or find) and they are all very clean.

I had an hour-long conversation with a Guatemalan woman about how she hand-washes her whole family's shirts and pants every day because they each only have two sets - one for today and one for tomorrow. She took great pride in how well-dressed and clean her family was despite them not having the resources for many clothes, a washing machine, or the luxury of not having to do hard, dirty work on a regular basis.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#235

Post by vonmoltke » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

freejulian wrote: post #215

adventured wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's refuted by the increases in US consumer spending while clothing expenditures are simultaneously falling. You'll need to support your claims about the second item. Saying it, does not make it so. Real disposable income is at an all-time high. Personal consumption expenditures are at an all-time high. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96 Americans are also spending le…

I mean, my statements are pretty well documented at this point. 1) After adjusting for inflation, wages have fallen and rents have increased. They've been increasing at a pace of roughly 3% above inflation/year: https://www.cbpp.org/blog/new-census-data-show-rising-rents-... Additionally, people aren't saving money like they use to. In fact, the savings rate is currently the lowest its been...ever: https://fred.stlou…

> After adjusting for inflation, wages have fallen and rents have increased. They've been increasing at a pace of roughly 3% above inflation/year:

Where in that link does it say per year? The text and the chart show a 4% rise above inflation total from 2007 to 2015. That rate of rise is in line with the numbers from last year[1] that show housing as a whole rose somewhere between 0.5% and 1% more than overall inflation.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/mobile/consumer-price-inde...

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#236

Post by macNchz » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

kimdcmason wrote: post #202

skywhopper wrote: post #118

This is a pretty sloppy article, with a bunch of conventional-wisdom-as-evidence and no critical analysis of potential cause and effect. H&M as a stand-in for "cheap clothes", ignoring any number of other cheap clothing retailers that have come and gone for decades. Using only three datapoints for Levis 501 prices going back only to 2009 when claiming trends that go back 30 years, and when Levis 501s have been availa…

"the Fed reacted with big interest rate hikes that sent the stock market plummeting." Wat? We're still in of one of the longest bull runs in history. The S&P 500 jumped 80% in the last 5 years. Even incorporating the minor market correction in the last week (2/3rds of which has already recovered), the stock market has done the reverse of what you suggest.

The hysteria over what amounts to a blip in a seemingly endless run-up of the markets has kind of surprised me over the past few days. Not sure what to make of it, but it has been interesting to watch.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#237

Post by dopeboy » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

ryanianian wrote: post #232

rb808 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't explain why people in the poorest countries dress better than Americans. People living in the slums of India/Nigeria/Brazil are more likely to have a collared shirt and dress pants than an American going to work in an office.

This. I see two things happening here: (1) American spending less on clothing and (2) Americans having less self-pride in their attire and presentation. I've spent a fair amount of time in Latin American countries, and a real sure-fire way to identify tourists is to look for people poorly-dressed or those who look like they just don't care about how they look. E.g., despite much of Mexico being quite hot, you will al…

I was in Mexico last week near Cancun and observed exactly that. I always saw the locals with jeans and a nice shirt. There's no way I could do that in 85F weather.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#238

Post by freejulian » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #227

coliveira wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. In a capitalist society, the better explanation is almost always an economic one. It boggles my mind that so many people find it difficult to understand this simple concept. Not only wages are stagnant, but the population is under high increases in housing and health care costs, which are not accounted in official inflation. Add this to the reduced welfare state, and you have the perfect recipe for this situat…

> Not only wages are stagnant, but the population is under high increases in housing and health care costs, which are not accounted in official inflation. The US CPI does account for those, and the CPI changes are the "official" inflation rate.

Yes, rents are certainly included in CPI. For me, it's more a question of weighting. When it's not uncommon to find people spending 50% of their income on rent, are rents being appropriately weighted in the CPI?

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#239

Post by prostoalex » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

freejulian wrote: post #218

prostoalex wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article seems to operate on a different premise. In sentence 2, "At a time when the economy is growing, unemployment is low, wages are rebounding and consumers are eager to buy..." Do you think they're looking at the wrong economic data?

As always, depends on how this data is being measured. Unemployment is low, but the labor force participation rate is also low. Are the jobs good quality? Wages are rebounding? I haven’t seen any evidence of this. There’s many people asking if the Phillips curve even works any more. If there had been any uptick in wages it’s a very recent uptick and hardly a trend yet.

But they do mention other categories growing. If clothing is semi-discretionary, travel and eating out seem like completely discretionary categories, first ones on the chopping block when the money is tight:

> Apparel is being displaced by travel, eating out and activities—what’s routinely lumped together as “experiences”—which have grown to 18 percent of purchases. Technology alone, including data charges and media content, accounts for 3.4 percent of spending. That now tops all clothing and footwear expenditures.

Anecdotally I don't think they're too off-base on travel and experiences. Airports seem busier and even with an increased number of flights the airlines generally run at higher capacity (although some of it could be explained by post-9/11/2001 slump).

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#240

Post by kimdcmason » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #89

mieseratte wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i’d rather buy a small number of high quality See, something I've noticed too is that "high price / high quality" brands seem to not be so anymore. Recently I bought a handful of Carhartt pants, pricey-but-quality, or so it used to be yet the quality seems to have been driven downhill and all those pants quickly fell apart in various ways. I've found the $20-$30 lesser-known brands ended up being of higher quality,…

All blue jeans for instance are made in the same factory in Korea. All of them.

The blue jeans I'm wearing made in Lesotho disagree with you.