Out of every $100 American consumers spend, about $1 goes to alcohol. That hasn't changed much over the past 30 years.
But where we spend our money on alcohol has changed quite a bit. We spend a bigger chunk of our booze money in bars and restaurants. We spend less money buying alcohol at the store to drink at home.
That doesn't necessarily mean we go out more often. Adjusted for inflation, the price of alcohol we buy at the store has gone down. The price of alcohol at bars has gone way up.
This isn't particularly surprising. Over time, you expect productivity gains and falling prices in manufactured goods. But a bartender today can't make drinks any faster than a bartender 30 years ago. In other words, there haven't been major productivity gains at bars. When a sector lags in productivity growth, it tends to have increasing prices. (This study has more on this idea.)
BONUS GRAPHIC: Of the money we spend drinking at home, more goes to wine and less goes to hard alcohol. The percentage of our booze dollar that goes to beer hasn't changed much.
Comments
last commentI rarely have beers at home. There is other alcohol there (wine & tequila), but not consumed there, at least not by me.
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Just think of all the money you could save by not consuming alcohol. More for Clubbing!!! LMAO
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Alucard,
To hell with beer, I could buy a brand new hakapik!
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I don't find this surprising, for some reason. I'm too young to have gone out drinking 30 years ago, but when I first became of age to drink about 1994 or so, once I got away from the bars which catered solely to college students, it seemed like everyone was there by themselves. Nowadays, it seems like everyone is always going in groups even to regular bars, or at least it did before I quit going to bars since I had to give up alcohol a couple years ago. I also think there are more restaurants which sell alcohol than there used to be, but then, when I was younger, when I went to a restaurant, it wasn't so I could drink alcohol, either, so I could be wrong on that one.
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I would like to know how much of our tax $$$$ are spent on liquor for government officials and functions. sure it is millions upon millions of our hard earned taxes. read an article that Pelosi spent thousands on liquor for her plane trips back and forth to California , all at taxpayers expense.
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