“While the economy is recovering and families are beginning to have more financial flexibility, they are still very cautious when making major purchases. If they can spend less, but still get something very tasteful and befitting their loved one, a family may choose that option,” says Jessica Koth, spokeswoman for the National Funeral Directors Association.
And if any movement is changing the monument business most, it is the huge rise in cremations.
Today, about 43 percent of people are cremated. Compare that to 2000 when only one in four people were cremated. In 1970, fewer than 5 percent of people were cremated.
Until the mid point of the twentieth century every major Christian Church/Denomination prohibited cremation. Today, as far as I know only one does.