For release: 10:00 a.m. (EDT), Thursday, September 3, 2015 USDL-15-1696
Technical Information: (202) 691-6900 • CEXInfo@bls.gov • www.bls.gov/cex
Media Contact : (202) 691-5902 • PressOffice@bls.gov
CONSUMER EXPENDITURES--2014
Average expenditures per consumer unit in 2014 were $53,495, a 4.7-percent
increase from 2013 levels, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
During the same period, the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) rose 1.6 percent(1).
In 2013, spending decreased 0.7 percent. Average pre-tax income per consumer
unit increased at about the same pace as expenditures, up 4.8 percent from
2013.
Consumer units 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.
Most major components of household spending increased in 2014, as shown in
table A. Many of the categories with large percentage increases in
expenditures rebounded from declines in spending in 2013. The rise in
healthcare expenditures was one of the largest increases among the major
components. The subcomponent for health insurance expenditures increased
primarily due to an improvement in the survey questionnaire. Because of
the questionnaire change for health insurance, these estimates are not
strictly comparable to prior years.
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| Note on health insurance |
| |
|More consumer units reported expenditures for health insurance in 2014 |
|than in 2013, and because of an improvement in interview collection methods, |
|higher expenditures were reported. The percent of households reporting |
|quarterly expenditures on health insurance increased from 65.5 percent in 2013 |
|to 68.0 percent in 2014. The insurance questions were revised from 3-month |
|recall questions to questions about the amount of the last payment and the |
|payment period. |
| |
|The new estimates are more accurate because the respondent does not have to |
|calculate a quarterly estimate—instead the estimate is calculated by BLS, |
|using the amount of the last payment which respondents are more likely to know.|
|On the basis of cognitive testing of these questions, BLS concluded that these |
|new questions produce better estimates. For those consumer units whose time |
|in sample encompassed reporting health insurance expenditures using both the |
|old questions and the new questions, the mean expenditure using the new |
|questions increased by 26.2 percent compared to the old questions. In the 2014 |
|tables, some of the over-the-year change in the healthcare expenditure data, |
|especially in the health insurance subcomponent, is due to these improvements |
|to the survey questionnaire |
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Table A. Average annual expenditures and characteristics of all consumer units
and percent changes, 2012-14
________________________________________________________________________________
Percent change
Item 2012 2013 2014 2012-2013 2013-2014
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Average income before taxes $65,596 $63,784 $66,877 -2.8 4.8
Average annual expenditures $51,442 $51,100 $53,495 -0.7 4.7
Food 6,599 6,602 6,759 0.0 2.4
Food at home 3,921 3,977 3,971 1.4 -0.2
Food away from home 2,678 2,625 2,787 -2.0 6.2
Housing 16,887 17,148 17,798 1.5 3.8
Shelter 9,891 10,080 10,491 1.9 4.1
Owned dwellings 6,056 6,108 6,149 0.9 0.7
Rented dwellings 3,186 3,324 3,631 4.3 9.2
Apparel and services 1,736 1,604 1,786 -7.6 11.3
Transportation 8,998 9,004 9,073 0.1 0.8
Gasoline and motor oil 2,756 2,611 2,468 -5.3 -5.5
Vehicle insurance 1,018 1,013 1,112 -0.5 9.8
Healthcare 3,556 3,631 4,290 2.1 n/a
Health insurance 2,061 2,229 2,868 8.2 n/a
Entertainment 2,605 2,482 2,728 -4.7 9.9
Cash contributions 1,913 1,834 1,788 -4.1 -2.5
Personal insurance 5,591 5,528 5,726 -1.1 3.6
and pensions
All other expenditures 3,557 3,267 3,548 -8.2 8.6
n/a - Because of the questionnaire change for health insurance, the 2013-14
percent change is not strictly comparable to prior years.
________________________________________________________________________________
Spending patterns, 2013-14
One of the largest increases was in the apparel and services category, up 11.3
percent, rebounding from a decline in 2013.
Food expenditures rose 2.4 percent in 2014, propelled by an increase of 6.2 percent
in spending on food away from home. Food at home expenditures were virtually
unchanged in 2014.
Transportation expenditures rose a modest 0.8 percent. Gasoline and motor oil
expenditures continued to decline, decreasing by 5.5 percent to $2,468, mirroring a
drop in gasoline prices, which fell 3.9 percent according to the CPI-U(2). Vehicle
insurance expenditures, however, rose 9.8 percent.
Cash contributions dropped for the second straight year in 2014, falling by 2.4
percent.
Spending by composition of consumer unit
Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) data measure how consumers allocate their
spending among the various components of average annual expenditures. Table B
compares the shares allocated to selected major expenditure categories by
composition of consumer unit in 2014. One parent households with at least one child
under 18 allocated over one-half of their total spending to food and housing; they
reported the highest shares of spending on the individual items among the groups
studied. Over 10 percent of total spending went to healthcare for married couple
only households, over twice as large a share as reported by one parent households
(5.1 percent). The average age of the reference person of married couple only
households was twenty years older than that of single person households
(59.1 years old vs. 39.1 years old). Married couple with children households
allocated the highest share of all groups to personal insurance and pensions
(12.5 percent), while other married couple households (those with married couples
and persons other than children living in the consumer unit) allocated the highest
share to transportation (18.6 percent).
Table B. Shares of average annual expenditures on selected major components
by composition of consumer unit, 2014
_____________________________________________________________________________
Item Married Married Other
couple couple married
only with couple
children consumer
units
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Food 11.8 12.9 14.5
Housing 30.5 31.8 30.5
Transporation 17.5 17.3 18.6
Healthcare 10.3 7.3 7.8
Personal insurance and pensions 11.1 12.5 11.6
_____________________________________________________________________________
Item One Single
parent, person
at least, and other
one child consumer
under 18 units
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Food 14.8 12.4
Housing 38.0 36.7
Transporation 17.0 15.9
Healthcare 5.1 7.3
Personal insurance and pensions 7.5 8.9
_____________________________________________________________________________
Spending by income quintile
Table C shows the percent change for expenditures by income quintile.
Overall spending increased in all quintiles. Spending on food at home and
transportation was a mix of increases and decreases among the quintiles.
Spending on housing, entertainment, and food away from home increased for all
quintiles in 2014.
Table C. Dollar change and percent change in average annual expenditures on
selected major components by income quintile, 2013-14
______________________________________________________________________________
Lowest Second Third
Item Dollar Percent Dollar Percent Dollar
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Average annual expenditure change:
Total $1,320 5.9 $987 3.0 $2,900
Food 12 0.3 -27 -0.6 264
At home -8 -0.3 -83 -2.6 64
Away from home 20 1.8 55 3.5 200
Housing 680 7.6 514 4.3 640
Apparel and services 62 8.6 82 7.9 202
Transportation 228 6.9 -160 -2.7 404
Entertainment 106 10.6 150 10.6 368
Cash contributions -71 -12.3 80 7.6 115
Personal insurance and pensions 38 8.2 -59 -3.6 57
All other expenditures 186 9.8 7 0.4 199
______________________________________________________________________________
Third Fourth Highest
Item Percent Dollar Percent Dollar Percent
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Average annual expenditure change:
Total 6.8 $1,575 2.7 $5,126 5.2
Food 4.6 124 1.6 411 3.7
At home 1.8 19 0.4 -19 -0.3
Away from home 9.4 104 3.3 430 8.4
Housing 4.3 484 2.5 911 2.9
Apparel and services 15.2 -9 -0.5 569 18.6
Transportation 5.0 -64 -0.6 -72 -0.4
Entertainment 18.4 102 3.6 496 9.7
Cash contributions 8.8 -182 -8.7 -177 -4.3
Personal insurance and pensions 1.6 152 2.3 789 5.1
All other expenditures 8.3 273 8.1 733 10.8
______________________________________________________________________________
Tables and data
CE data include the expenditures and income of consumers, as well as the
demographic characteristics of those consumers. Tables with more expenditure
detail are available at www.bls.gov/cex. Published tables provide 2014 CE data
by standard classifications that include income quintile, income class, age of
reference person, size of consumer unit, number of earners, composition of
consumer unit, region of residence, housing tenure, type of area (urban-rural),
race, Hispanic origin, occupation, and highest education level of any member.
These annual tables include means, shares, and standard errors. New to the
annual tables this year is the Deciles of Income table, dividing the sample
into 10 equal sections by income range. Other tables available on the website
include expenditures by age, region, size, or gender cross-tabulated by income
before taxes and other demographic variables. Historical tables back to 1984
and tabulations for selected metropolitan areas are also available.
Future articles in the BLS Beyond the Numbers web report series will highlight
recent trends in prices and spending in the U.S. economy, and will feature
2014 CE data. Recent CE-specific Beyond the Numbers articles provide analyses
of topical economic issues and long term spending trends, as well as
comparisons of CE data to other data series
(see www.bls.gov/cex/csxwebarticles.htm).
Other survey information available on the internet includes answers to
frequently asked questions, a glossary, order forms for survey products, and
analytical articles that use CE data. Also available are the Diary Survey
questionnaire form and a modified version of the Computer Assisted Personal
Interview (CAPI) instrument used to collect the Interview Survey data.
The 2014 CE public-use microdata, including Interview Survey data, Diary
Survey data, and paradata (information about the survey process), are
available on the CE website for free electronic download. The Interview files
contain expenditure data in two different formats: MTBI files that present
monthly values in an item-coding framework based on the CPI pricing scheme,
and EXPN files that organize expenditures by the section of the Interview
questionnaire in which they are collected. Expenditure values on EXPN files
cover different time periods depending on the specific questions asked, and
the files also contain relevant non-expenditure information not found on the
MTBI files. The public-use microdata for 2014 also includes the new estimates
of state and federal tax liabilities. The CE introduced these estimates to
improve the quality of the tax data. The tax data collected directly from
consumer units during the Interview survey will be available in the 2014
public use microdata, after which they will no longer be collected. CE
public-use microdata from 1996 to 2013 are also available on the CE website
for free download. For releases prior to 1996, users can continue to
purchase USB flash drives using the public-use microdata order form
(see www.bls.gov/cex/pumdhome.htm).
For further information, contact the Division of Consumer Expenditure Survey,
Office of Prices and Living Conditions, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2
Massachusetts Ave., N.E., Washington, DC 20212 or call (202) 691-6900;
E-mail:cexinfo@bls.gov. Information in this release is available to sensory
impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: 202-691-5200;
Federal Relay Service: 1 (800) 877-8339.
1 This is calculated as the percentage change between the annual average CPI-U
for all items for 2014 (236.736) and the annual average CPI-U for all items
for 2013 (232.957). See CPI Detailed Report, Data for January 2015, Table 1A.
2 This is calculated as the percentage change between the annual average CPI-U
for gasoline for 2014 (290.889) and the annual average CPI-U for gasoline for
2013 (302.577). See CPI Detailed Report, Data for January 2015, Table 1A.
United States Department of Labor
