Meat consumption in a declining economy — ours

But what happens to meat consumption, and to eating patterns in general, when wealth across a population declines? Especially if the economy in question is a meat-loving culture with traditionally plenty of wealth. According to “The Demographics of Wealth: 2018 Series,” an in-depth study conducted by the Center for Household Financial Stability (CFS) of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, families whose head of household was born in 1960 or later have yet to regain the economic footing (in terms of median wealth — a measure of net income and net worth) they had before the Great Recession began in 2008. By 2016 (the latest year for which data was available), 30 years’ worth of families, as measured by the head of household’s year of birth, were poorer in terms of assets and sometimes income than economists would have predicted before the recession began.And the discrepancies increase as the age of the head of household decreases. CFS researchers calculated that families whose head of household was born in the 1980s had accumulated median wealth that was 34 percent below what pre-recession measures would have predicted.Families whose head of household was born in the 1970s came up 18 percent short of predicted median wealth, and those born in the 1960s were 11 percent shy of projections. Baby boomers and older consumers are moving into slow-growth categories simply by virtue of their life stage. If successive generations don’t feel they can afford to spend the way their parents did, the long-term implications for the meat category are also weak.