US pet industry spending

American pet-industry spending climbing as the world average Democracy Index slips. The household took better care of its dog while the world handled itself less well. Two completely unrelated trends, on opposite sides of the regression line.

US pet industry spending grew from about 38 to over 130 billion dollars across this window as pet humanisation, premium food, and pet-tech expanded the category. The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index has trended down for over a decade, with global average scores falling as authoritarian backsliding spread across multiple regions. Two completely unrelated lines on opposite trajectories sharing a window because the same seventeen years saw both a pet-spending expansion and a global democratic recession.

Two graphs about a decade. One household spent more; one world held less. Different rooms, same calendar.