There's actually way more disposable income today than even 100 years ago. We just spend it on things that didn't exist before like car insurance and iPhones.
Car insurance is legally mandatory if you drive a car. If your income is predicated on being able to commute by car (as it is for many Americans, though hopefully a trend toward remote work will ameliorate this somewhat) then your insurance is no more optional than your gas.
People also talk about smartphones as though they're a luxury item, but for most intents and purposes owning one can be viewed as required. Tons of services, including your bank, require a cell phone for authentication, if not to use their services at all. Everyone from your boss to your spouse has an expectation that you can be reached most if not all of the time. I try to avoid being reachable at all times, but this is a luxury I can afford because I'm relatively well-off and technologically adept, and I still can't get around 2FA requirements for everything.
So like, if that stuff is bought with "disposable income", is rent?
And the median and average for disposable income is a lot higher in the US than in Europe. US disposable income is only comparable to the most affluent nations of Europe: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland.
Americans waste an enormous amount of money on consumer garbage. Until recently it was very common for households to have $150-$200 / month cable or satellite TV plans. It's still common, just slightly less so thanks to Netflix etc. $200-$300 family smartphone plans are common.
Americans also flip in and out of cars frequently, losing huge sums of money doing it. And they buy ridiculously over-priced new vehicles, which they keep for relatively short periods of time.
Please please don't redefine economic terms to suit your intuitive belief about what a word "should" mean because you are wading into an area where you don't know the agreed upon terminology. That impedes communication.
If you want to refer to income after paying necessities, then this is "discretionary income".
Our standards are way higher these days cause the truth is we're all spoiled.
I wont make the comparison to 100 years ago (as you did) because that was a period of time including 2 world wars and the great depression., But adjusted for inflation, people generally have LESS discretionary income now than they did in the 60s. Again, this is hard to corroborate with official poverty statistics due to changes in the cost of living (and conversely, the provision of benefits such as food stamps), which are frequently petitioned to be amended.
Over 12% of americans have such low discretionary income they have to rely on food banks - a figure comparable to the 1970s.
10x more people in the UK are accessing emergency food from food banks than they did 10 years ago.
It is a terrible state of affairs, to be honest. Please dont use disposable income :)
Maybe you should check your privilege. Your 50% discretionary income is FAR from the norm.
Median income is less than 45k (gross - this means before tax, etc) - than means 50% of the population earn LESS than that. 25% earn less than 24k. 10% earn less than $9k...
These people cant afford a small house, let alone a big one...
Just to be clear so there's no ambiguity. I don't care about the poor in america. I seriously could care less. My entire family immigrated to the USA in the 90s and none of them are poor. They all self made themselves into upper middle class lives within 20 years. Meanwhile Americans born in America with every advantage and privilege just whine all day and want more more more for nothing.
Also sick and tired of constantly having social justice internet warriors tell me I'm privileged when I'm literally self made from zero. It's not privileged when you work your way up from fast food to six figures tech work. that's called "earning" things. Please learn the difference.
Honestly, your lack of awareness is quite astounding - but it appears that you are overentitled as well as privileged, so that kind of makes sense.
Im sorry you care so much about my opinion.