Who’s in the consumer-spending driver’s seat?
Marketplace
American Public Media
4.6 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The top 10% of earners account for half of all consumer spending in the U.S., a new study shows. In other words, if the goods and services Americans buy in a year were a pie, those with the highest incomes have been shelling out for a massive slice. Where does that leave everyone else? Also in this episode: Investors and the AI industry await Nvidia’s earnings report this week and tariffs threaten a complex auto manufacturing supply chain.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the sound of another sale on Shopify, the all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow your business. |
| 0:10.8 | Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. |
| 0:16.9 | Covering all your sales channels, from a shopfront-ready POS system to its all-in-one |
| 0:22.5 | e-commerce platform, Shopify even gets you selling across social media marketplaces, like |
| 0:28.4 | Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. It's time to get serious about selling and get Shopify today. |
| 0:35.3 | Sign up for a one pound per month trial at Shopify.com.uk. |
| 0:40.0 | U.K. slash Marketplace 22, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com.uk.U.K. slash Marketplace 22 to take your business to the next level today. Shopify.com. UK slash Marketplace 22. |
| 0:57.7 | Yes, consumers drive this economy. |
| 1:02.0 | Which consumers, though, from American public media. |
| 1:07.0 | This is Marketplace. |
| 1:18.3 | Music This is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizdahl. |
| 1:20.8 | It is Monday today, the 24th of February. |
| 1:24.0 | Good as always to have you along, everybody. |
| 1:26.5 | If you are even a semi-regular listener to |
| 1:29.3 | this program, you know that the American consumer is the beating heart of this economy. |
| 1:34.7 | Repeat after me, because you've heard me say it often enough, spending by or on behalf of |
| 1:39.7 | consumers accounts for almost 70% of U.S. gross domestic product. |
| 1:45.7 | Turns out, though, that in the past couple of years, that spending has increasingly been |
| 1:49.3 | driven by a relatively small group of people. Moody's did some analysis for the Wall |
| 1:53.8 | Street Journal that shows in the top 10% of incomes, those consumers making $250,000 or more |
| 1:59.4 | of year. They account for nearly half of all |
| 2:02.8 | consumers spending, the highest shares since they've been collecting that kind of data. Marketplace's |
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