Where Our Money Goes

As reported by the San Francisco Fed.

88.5% of American consumer spending is for products and services made in the U.S.A.

  • 67% of the money we spend is for services, and almost all services are local; 96% in fact.
  • We spend about 10% on durables: cars, furniture, appliances. About two-thirds of the durables we buy are made in America.
  • The remaining 23% of our expenditures are for nondurables: food, clothing, gasoline, electricity. About three-quarters of these are made in America.

And even of the 11.5% we spend on foreign goods, more than a third is spent for American based transportation, wholesale and retail services. For Chinese made goods, the U.S. cost of the price is 55%. (Higher wholesale and retail margins on clothing, shoes and electronics account for this.)

Our economy is much, much more self-contained than generally understood.