Department of Labor Logo United States Department of Labor
Dot gov

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Spending on housing and transportation falls in 2009

October 07, 2010

Spending on housing and transportation (the largest components of consumers' budgets) fell 1.3 percent and 11.0 percent, respectively, contributing to an overall drop in spending in 2009. Healthcare expenditures rose 5.0 percent, the only increase among the major components of spending.

Average annual expenditures of all consumer units, 2008 and 2009
[Chart data]

Among the other major components, food expenditures dropped 1.1 percent (food at home increased by 0.2, while food away from home decreased 2.9 percent), apparel fell 4.2 percent, entertainment dropped 5.0 percent, and personal insurance and pensions fell 2.4 percent.

Overall, average annual expenditures per consumer unit—which were $50,486 in 2008 and $49,067 in 2009—fell 2.8 percent in 2009. This was the first time there has been a drop in spending from the previous year since the Consumer Expenditure Survey began publishing integrated data in 1984 from the Diary and Interview components of the survey.

These data come from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. See "Consumer Expenditures — 2009" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-10-1390, to learn more. Consumer units, which are similar to households, include families, single persons living alone or sharing a household with others but who are financially independent, or two or more persons living together who share expenses. These Consumer Expenditures data are nominal values not adjusted for inflation.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Spending on housing and transportation falls in 2009 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2010/ted_20101007.htm (visited October 05, 2024).

OF INTEREST
spotlight
Recent editions of Spotlight on Statistics



triangle