Americans should buy fewer goods

Social scientists have long noted the excessive consumerism in the United States. Consumerism can be defined as a society’s preoccupation with acquiring consumer goods. According to United Nations data, the United States ranks third behind only Bermuda and Switzerland, with household consumption expenditures per capita of $43,959. As the table below shows, those expenditures far exceed the expenditures for households in almost all other “First World” countries.

Source: Households and NPISHs Final consumption expenditure per capita (constant 2015 US$) | Data

About two-thirds of U.S. consumer expenditures are for services and there are other concerns relating to overconsumption of services. But U.S. households spend about $6.5 trillion each year on goods. The table below breaks down those expenditures.

Source: Consumer Spending Statistics (2026)

One needs only to drive through a typical American city to see examples of this overconsumption. Despite our oversized houses, many Americans cannot fit all their goods in those houses. Possessions often overflow to fill garages, requiring people to park their car in their driveway or on the street. And there are now more than 50,000 self-storage buildings in the United States, with about one-third of Americans renting a storage unit, including about 30% of families living in houses with four or more bedrooms. The most common items in these storage units are furniture, clothing, and appliances. Most concerningly, 42% of Americans say they are always or often overwhelmed by clutter in their homes.

Although some politicians like to encourage this excessive consumerism to promote short-term economic growth, overconsumption creates far more problems than it solves. Resources are needed to produce all these goods, which contributes to deforestation, water scarcity, soil erosion, greenhouse gas emissions, water and air pollution, and the loss of biodiversity. Almost all durable goods and many nondurable goods end up in landfills or incinerators, which each have their own environmental concerns; others end up in rivers, lakes, and oceans with even greater consequences. Many of the goods Americans buy are produced in developing countries with poor work conditions, low wages, and few worker rights. Our focus on obtaining unneeded goods causes us unnecessary anxiety and depression and increases the feeling of our growing economic inequality, which has many negative consequences on our society. And our focus on consumerism makes us more materialistic, leading us to neglect more important values like religion, family, community, and the environment. At its extreme, overconsumption encourages people to incur unsustainable debts, which often results in family economic crises and can contribute to national or even global financial crises and recessions.

The changes in individual behaviors needed to address this problem are fairly obvious. Americans should simply buy fewer goods. And when we do buy goods, we should buy higher-quality, locally made goods that can be sold or donated to others when we are finished with them, instead of inexpensive imported goods with shorter useful lives.

The changes in government policies needed to promote these changes in individual behaviors are more challenging. Higher tariffs on imported goods and higher sales taxes on goods generally can help reduce overconsumption. Although President Trump is almost certainly not concerned about overconsumption, his tariffs may contribute to some positive outcomes, by reducing goods consumption generally and shifting it from cheap foreign goods to higher quality domestic goods. President Trump was criticized for stating that an American child could have three or four dolls instead of 30, but it’s difficult to find fault with that statement (although limiting the child to five pencils seems more problematic).

Reducing online shopping would also help. The percentage of U.S. retail sales that are online increases every year, although more than 80% are still made at brick-and-mortar stores. Most states require only larger retailers to collect taxes on online sales, so people can purchase goods online from small businesses without paying a sales tax. Most states require residents to pay a use tax to make up for these lost sales taxes, but those use taxes are difficult to enforce and widely underpaid. More cities and counties are also starting to impose these use taxes to make up for the billions of dollars of lost sales tax revenue from online sales. Ideally, online sales would be taxed at higher rates than in-person sales to reduce unnecessary shipping to residences, encourage Americans to support their local communities, and reduce impulse purchases of unnecessary goods.

Policies to encourage smaller home sizes would also help. If Americans had smaller homes, they would likely buy fewer goods, although that is not certain, considering how many already buy goods that overflow into their garages, yards, and storage units. But having too many large, empty rooms in a new home likely encourages Americans to buy goods they don’t need to fill those rooms. No family should require more goods than fit comfortably in a 2,000 square foot house.

A change in messaging would also help. Political leaders should stop encouraging Americans to overspend as if it’s a patriotic duty. When consumers spend most of their disposable income instead of saving it, it can be beneficial for the economy in the short term during an economic downturn. However, even in the short term, more consumer saving may be preferable during healthy economic times, to prevent demand from exceeding supply, which can lead to inflation. And in the long term, more consumer saving is generally preferable, because it makes more funds available for business investment, which is one of the main determinants of long-term economic growth. Of course, political leaders are typically focused on their next election and are not thinking about the long term, which is why they encourage overconsumption.