Americans Cut Spending on Consumer Goods by 40% in Last 20 Years

But Quantity Rises 65% as Prices Drop

2011: 66 garments, 7.3 pairs of shoes

1991: 40 garments, 5.4 pairs of shoes

These numbers are given by Washington based Think Tank Global Works Foundation. It says that the most recent C.E.S. (Consumer Expenditure Survey), covering spending in 2011 reports that the two-parent family's bill for clothes and shoes is now 3.6 percent of the annual budget. Spending on bed sheets, towels, and rugs has dropped by half compared to 1991, to 0.3 percent of spending; furniture and appliances are at 2.7 percent. The household goods total therefore was 6.6 percent in 2011. This is a fall of 3.6 percent from 1991 when the spending was a good 10.2 percent.

According to the American Apparel and Footwear Association, the 253 million Americans of 1991 bought 10.8 billion articles of clothes and 1.3 billion pairs of shoes, or roughly 40 garments and 5 pairs of shoes per person. The 310 million Americans of 2011 bought 19.4 million pieces of clothing and 2.2 billion pairs of shoes, for an average of 66 garments and 7 pairs of shoes per person.

Americans are using less money to buy more things. Over the past two decades productivity rose; the world's container shipping fleet grew from 1.5 million 20-foot containers to 14 million containers; big-box stores and on-line shopping joined malls and outlets; the textile quotas which managed clothing trade from the 1970s to 2004 were abolished; and Asian integration, satellites and Internet links built up global supply chains. Thus home goods got much cheaper. Americans spend barely half as much as they used to on shirts, blouses, socks, and sneakers, but get 50 percent more of them. Converting this to dollar terms, two observations:

Where does the extra money go? To health insurance and energy bills.

With extra money, are today's families wrong to feel financial pressure? Not really. As an extra $2,510 comes in from savings on home goods, a lot of it goes back out to health insurance and energy - health insurance costs have risen from 1.8 percent to 3.3 percent of family spending, and gasoline costs from 3.6 percent to 5.5 percent. On the other hand there are a few bits of happier bits of spending news:

Education spending is up from 1.7 percent to 2.7 percent;

Charitable giving is up from 2.4 percent to 2.6 percent;

Fresh fruit and vegetables is up from 0.9 to 1.0 percent.

The Consumer Expenditure Survey is one of the oldest continuous surveys in the world, first carried out shortly after the Bureau's creation in 1884. Their long look back finds that in times remembered as sunny and calm - the Gilded Age, the post-war boom, etc. - Americans lived pretty close to the bone. Over time, Americans have been steadily spending less of their income to feed and clothe themselves, but more on somewhat more shelter, and likewise more on education and entertainment. Only within the last decade did the three big life necessities - food, clothing, a roof over the head - fall below half of a typical family's budget. A summary of life-necessities spending (for all households rather than two-parent families only, expressed as a share of spending) over a century of American life: