this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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Depressing bit of the day: I don't have the source with me right now but there was a claim on youtube that the top 1% make up for like half of the consumer market in the USA.
Half of everything sold in dollars is done by the ultra rich. Everyone else is basically irrelevant and driven to extinction under capitalism, if that is accurate.
They're not buying 50% of the junk on Amazon, they're buying yachts and supercars.
Those studies do not refer to item volume, they refer to monetary value.
If a business can earn more by selling 5 cars worth half a million each per year, instead of trying to sell 20 or even 30 Cars under 40k to average people their entire business model will shift to cater to billionaires and multi millionaires.
The bulk of average people are becoming irrelevant to the current capitalist market, that's the point.
A quick google says 15-20%, which makes sense. Maybe the top 10% could comprise 50% of consumer spending, perhaps.
Iirc it’s the top 10%.
I still wonder, how would the ultra rich or even the top 10% stay rich if the middle and lower classes are all unemployed. Won’t it “trickle up” to the richer people.
Probably most of Amazon revenue comes from the bottom 90%. I mean. There’s only so much a single individual needs to buy. Same goes for subscriptions, cars, clothes. Etc.
Maybe they’re buying luxury products now and the price makes it represent so much of the overall economy. But won’t they also get affected when their company loses their “bottom” customers. Less sales will affect the stock market, which will likely reduce their purchase power as well.
And I really think it will affect the big players. More unemployed people will cause less people to sign up for Amazon prime. Less people subscribing to Netflix will hurt Netflix which in place will require less resources and that affect Amazon at the end of the day when they cut down on aws expenses.
This is a simple and likely naive idea from me but I really think that everything is still very connected. Even the ai replacing stuff. Most of their money right now comes from selling it to businesses. Not all businesses cater for the top 10%. So that means more business going broke and less ai being sold as well.
Very possible yes, it's been a awhile since I saw it.
Interesting, I've recently heard the automotive market is starting to cater to the $70k+ crowd and so this tracks somewhat. That said, the 1% accounting for 50% of consumption still sounds incredible.
thats pretty much vegas has been doing for the past decade, only catering to well off people in the hopes they can stay the same.
Yeah, I've seen it from a few different videos, including one citing a 2005 Citibank report pointing out that this would become a major trend.
Wealth inequality is bad enough that I've even seen some marketing professionals mention it as a possible problem for some companies.
1% is not just the ultra-rich. It likely includes a lot of people on lemmy right now
yea its people who are upper middle class to, lawyers, doctors, tech professionals,,,etc. almost everyone else earning 100k or less.
The top 1% of earners in the US made over $1 million last year. I doubt any lemmy users are in that category.