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Spending on mortgage interest payments and charges, a subcomponent of housing expenditures (the largest component of consumers’ budgets in 2009), fell from $3,890 in 2007 to $3,594 in 2009—evidence of the higher than normal default rate on mortgages, falling house prices, lower rates of homeownership, and declining mortgage interest rates over the period.
Among other subcomponents of housing expenditures, spending on rented dwellings increased from $2,602 in 2007 to $2,860 in 2009. Consumer units within the highest income quintile group increased expenditures for rented dwellings from $1,293 in 2007 to $1,911 in 2009.
As the price of gasoline rose and fell sharply from 2007 to 2009, expenditures on gasoline and motor oil fluctuated—increasing from $2,384 in 2007 to $2,715 in 2008 and then decreasing to $1,986 in 2009.
The level of spending on healthcare continued to rise, from $2,853 in 2007 to $3,126 in 2009, largely due to the spending increase in the health insurance subcomponent.
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.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Spending on mortgage interest payments and charges decreases from 2007 to 2009 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2010/ted_20101014.htm (visited October 31, 2024).