Yes that is an attention-grabbing title. In short, Dave Ramsey says Americans didn’t flinch at inflation. Rather than cut back spending, Americans borrowed more.
Quick check. Not having 100% confidence in what Dave Ramsey (or any human) says, I did a quick check on the economic data. It turns out the data do support Ramsey’s argument. Figure 1 below shows that as inflation (blue) increased starting June 2020, consumer credit (red) and spending (white) also increased.
Two Takeaways
- Reflect on your own spending and debt patterns of the past couple years.
- Adjust if you are on the path to wealth destruction rather than wealth construction.
Enjoy,
-Dr. Moore
Link to the article: HTML.
Figure 1. Inflation, spending, and consumer debt over time.
PCE CUR$ (White): A measure of U.S. consumer spending. Specifically, U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditures in nominal dollars.
CPI YOY (Blue): A measure of U.S. inflation. Specifically, Year over Year changes in the Consumer Price Index.
CCOSTOT (Red): A measure of U.S. consumer debt. Specifically, Federal Reserve Consumer Credit Outstanding Total Seasonally adjusted in billions of dollars.
Efficient Minds™ 
The red and white lines and constant(pretty much) and look like the rate of increase is in parallel. I wonder if there is any specific data showing how Covid affected consumers purchase patterns or consumption? If that had any increase?
There is intriguing Netflix show that goes into consumer debt where a NY times writer helps people get wealth construction by understanding how they spend their money.
The chart starts on 2017.06.24. Therefore you can see spending patterns pre-, during, and post-covid. Bloomberg does have more granular data (e.g., spending in different categories). Next time you are on campus, swing by the Bloomberg lab and just start typing things like “us consumer discretionary spending”, “dating spending” (yes, I saw something on that in there), etc.