In all seriousness, income has stayed about the same in nominal terms, but the cost of living has gone way up even between millennials and gen z. So really income has gone down and booze is much more of a luxury.
There’s part of it but also anecdotally a lot of us are aware that alcohol in pretty much any quality has negative effects and therefore don’t drink at all. There’s a lot less pressure to drink than in expect there was for other generations, it’s pretty normal for me to meet other people who prefer not to drink.
alcohol in pretty much any quality has negative effects
The key is that this guidance came out somewhere between millennial and gen z coming of age.
When I was a child the TV news would run “health” stories about how moderate amounts of red wine are good for you. It turned out those studies were funded by the alcohol industry.
Man I went to a party last week, had one glass of red wine and no other alcohol, and woke up the next morning with a killer headache. I’m 42 and not much of a drinker but this kind of reaction made me think it was specifically the red wine. I ain’t doing that again for a long while, if ever.
Drug use, and especially problematic drug use, has low price elasticity and the US is a relatively high-income country. The cost of living is almost certainly a negligible factor in the decline of alcohol consumption.
Although most of the gains have gone to top earners, US real median household income has trended slightly upwards over time and is not “way [down].”
Moreover, high-income European countries where even fewer people are budget-constrained when it comes to drug use have also seen dramatic declines in alcohol consumption.
Because they’re weak.
In all seriousness, income has stayed about the same in nominal terms, but the cost of living has gone way up even between millennials and gen z. So really income has gone down and booze is much more of a luxury.
There’s part of it but also anecdotally a lot of us are aware that alcohol in pretty much any quality has negative effects and therefore don’t drink at all. There’s a lot less pressure to drink than in expect there was for other generations, it’s pretty normal for me to meet other people who prefer not to drink.
The key is that this guidance came out somewhere between millennial and gen z coming of age.
When I was a child the TV news would run “health” stories about how moderate amounts of red wine are good for you. It turned out those studies were funded by the alcohol industry.
Man I went to a party last week, had one glass of red wine and no other alcohol, and woke up the next morning with a killer headache. I’m 42 and not much of a drinker but this kind of reaction made me think it was specifically the red wine. I ain’t doing that again for a long while, if ever.
Drug use, and especially problematic drug use, has low price elasticity and the US is a relatively high-income country. The cost of living is almost certainly a negligible factor in the decline of alcohol consumption.
Although most of the gains have gone to top earners, US real median household income has trended slightly upwards over time and is not “way [down].”
Moreover, high-income European countries where even fewer people are budget-constrained when it comes to drug use have also seen dramatic declines in alcohol consumption.