Average American household budgets are dominated by housing, transportation and taxes.
Maybe some of that problem is about spending too much money, but it cannot be denied that housing are unaffordable and that transportation is inefficient and is a mess.
Taxes? That can't possibly be right. Average American household pays a small fraction of their income in taxes. Unless they somehow got a huge, expensive house and have the mortgage paid off, I don't see how their income could possibly be dominated by taxes over, say, healthcare, or food.
You left out health care and education.
> Average American household budgets are dominated by [...] transportation
Huh? Doesn't the average American live in a city? The whole reason for accepting being squeezed in tightly with other people is so that you don't have to worry about transportation; enabling everything you could ever want and need to be found in short walking distance.
Transportation is for people in rural areas. Yes, it is expensive, but that's exactly why most people left rural areas for the city long ago.
That's a two-edged sword. Food, clothing, cars and all sorts of factory produced stuff are significantly cheaper today than they were 50 years ago. So they don't dominate budgets the way they used to 50 years ago.