Growth in Consumer Spending for Housing and Selected Household Expenditures

July 19, 2019  by Laurie Northington in General   

Overall, personal consumption expenditures have risen 41.6 percent post-recession with the majority of consumer spending – roughly two-thirds – absorbed by services and the amount increases every year. This is the fourth factoid in a series of five factoids detailing consumer spending across all spending categories in 2018.

Housing and Household Expenditures

Since the recession, renter-occupied housing has surged as the fastest growing housing expense – up 86.4 percent since 2007. Both household insurance and owner-occupied housing expenditures have also grown at a fast pace, increasing by 40.8 percent and 47.5 percent respectively. Major household appliances have shown steady growth, while televisions have fallen flat and outpaced by other household spending. Surprisingly, tools and equipment for house and garden have skyrocketed the last few years – jumping 43 percent since 2012.

As Americans are staying put longer, household maintenance spending has grown an average of 4.8 percent a year from 2011 to 2016. 2016 to 2017 saw a dip (-0.8 percent) in housing maintenance but the numbers picked back up last year – growing 3.8 percent. Last year, rents and mortgages both saw a high growth of 4.5 percent and 4.4 percent as supply continues to tighten in many areas. Furniture has shown the most growth over the past year, rising 7 percent after an average yearly increase of 4.6 percent from 2011 to 2016.

Source: Personal Consumption Expenditures, Bureau of Labor Statistics