Boxers or Briefs: Skid Marks on the Road to Economic Recovery

Michael Brush, a staff writer on the economy for MSN, recently wrote an article about one of the most surprisingly accurate economic indicators: Men’s underwear. Apparently, during tuff economic times men tend to forgo buying new underwear and rather wait it out with frayed, battered, sometimes dilapidated briefs. Typically, if a guy is not privy to the sorry state of his “unmentionables,” his significant other will usually point out the situation or otherwise simply buy him new underwear. Brush’s article seems to suggest that even in relationships the quality of a man’s undergarments is the first luxury to go when budgets get tight. When economies turn for the better, men’s undie sales tend to skyrocket back up. In fact, men’s underwear sales are such a good economic indicator that former Federal Reserve chief, Allen Greenspan, would regularly track them.

Brush reports that after a 12% decline in men’s underwear sales in 2008, February and March of 2009 saw a leveling off of declining sales. What will it take to be back on the road to recovery? About a 2-3% gradual growth back up to the original numbers over the course of a few years should do the trick.

But what about the ladies? Apparently the Federal Reserve (or maybe just Greenspan) is not very concerned with bras and panties. Brush contends that this might be because women are generally more sensitive about wearing worn-out undergarments, and therefore more likely to replace them despite poor economic conditions.

My personal underwear arsenal is primarily composed of boxer shorts, which I understand fall apart and fray more quickly than briefs. Not surprisingly, I tend to hold on to my skivvies probably a bit longer past their ideal retirement date. What does this say about me? Essentially that I’m usually poor and single. In fact, the last time I bought underwear was about ten months ago and it happened on accident. I was putting together a superhero costume that required me to wear light blue men’s briefs on the outside of my pants. Being a boxers dude meant I would have to buy some special occasion underwear, so I headed to my local Wal-Mart to see what they had. I found the briefs just fine but was soon overcome and baffled by the array of options. Also, you can’t just by one pair of briefs – they only sell them in packs of three or five, so the pressure of this investment was mounting. I quickly located a package of briefs with a light blue pair that looked to be in my size and bolted. When I got home I was initially disappointed to see I purchased the wrong underwear for my costume, but was soon relieved when I put them on and discovered the miracle of boxer-briefs. I currently split my time between some tattered old boxers and my spiffy hybrid box-briefs ... Economically, no need to go commando just yet.