As most of you know, I’m the “minority owner” of two English Cream Golden Retrievers. They live in a village in the Rio Grande bosque, and I’m a short drive away. Recently got to spend four full days with my girls, which got me thinking about how ridiculously good pets have it in America. (Okay, I’m part of the problem, too.) Reminded me of a column I wrote in 2019.
Enjoy!
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Elizabeth Warren: “America’s middle class is under attack.”
Bernie Sanders: “How come for the last 45 years wages have been stagnant for the middle class?”
Kamala Harris: “Americans are working harder than ever but stagnant wages mean they can’t keep up with cost of living increases.”
Joe Biden: “I think we have to restore the backbone of America, the poor and hardworking middle class people.”
Kristen Gillibrand: “Day-to-day expenses keep going up, while paychecks are staying the same, or in too many cases, disappearing entirely. The middle class is slipping further and further behind and it is harder to even make it there.”
Wow — that’s a grisly depiction of the economic condition of the typical American family.
Think our pets would agree?
Probably not, if the latest edition of the National Pet Owners Survey is valid. Conducted every two years by the American Pet Products Association (APPA), the poll documents what we spend on our hairy, scaly, furry, and feathered friends. Carrying a price tag of $3,500 for non-members, the survey isn’t likely to sell many copies outside the industry. But APPA makes some of its findings public. Two-thirds of U.S. households, for example, own at least one pet. Between 2017 and 2018, spending on the creatures rose from $29.07 billion to $30.32. For 2019, the trade association’s expenditure estimate is $31.68 billion.
Close watchers of consumer habits have long known that America’s wealth permits its citizens to love, and thus, spend bigly on, pets. In what was either the worst or second-worst downturn of the post-World War II era, animal owners refused to cut back, according to a 2013 brief by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The publication found that between 2007 and 2011, average annual household expenses on pets rose from $430.80 to $502.05. No category saw a decline — not food, not supplies, not services, not vet bills.
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