Clothes can be from a second-hand store
These days it doesn't even have to be secondhand shops - in every shopping mall in Poland there there are stores with Polish brands which are cheaper than Western ones. There are also cheap stores like Pepco (1200 stores in Poland), TK Maxx, etc. You can also buy stuff on-line and hunt for sales.
I sometimes even buy clothes at places like Lidl - usually stuff to wear at home, but not always. A few years ago I bought nice classic leather ankle boots for a ridiculously low price (something like 60 PLN o_O) at Lidl - you'd have to pay around 200 PLN for such boots at a normal shoe shop (and that would be a price for a Polish brand, not even a Western one). Good quality, comfortable - one probably wouldn't be able to tell that they were bought at a discount supermarket ;D I still wear them :)
Surveys show that 70% of Polish people shop in secondhand clothes shops.
Yup and apparently not only because of low prices. Young people are more likely to shop at secondhand shops than other age groups - it's trendy these days, because you can find original clothes and it's eco:
nowymarketing.pl/polacy-szturmuja-second-handy-kto-dlaczego-i-jak-czesto-kupuje-ubrania-z-drugiej-reki-raport/
The rising cost of living in the USA is causing a significant problem with household debt.
I don't how comparable it is to the US, but prices have been rising in Poland too.
a Cabal that runs the show.
What... lol