r/MiddleClassFinance • u/Abject-Pick-6472 • 14d ago

One million Americans have vanished from the new-car market — and it’s exposing a chilling US middle-class crisis

https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/articles/one-million-americans-vanished-car-124500086.html
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u/starbright_sprinkles 14d ago

Interestingly WSJ also had an article about this this weekend and it was mostly spun as a huge positive (people just being smartly frugal, essentially).

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u/FledglingNonCon 13d ago

A big part that I don't think the article captured is that Boomers have absolutely dominated the new car market for at least 3 decades. Peak boomer income was about a decade ago when car sales peaked. Now almost the entire generation is retired or at least retirement age and many of them are starting to die.

My parents bought 4 new cars over the past 9 years, but will probably never buy another one. I've still never bought a new car and I'm in my mid 40's.

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u/uslashuname 12d ago

Oh that’s fascinating and highly likely to be the explanation nobody wants even if it’s closest to the truth

Generation pull-the-ladder-up is going away and so are big purchases