Home Furnishings: Follow the Money | Household Characteristics and | Spending on Essentials
December 22,
2017 by Jane Chero in General 
The top 20 percent of all households make over half (52.8 percent) of all income and pay 78.5 percent of all taxes. This still leaves these households who make over $105,600 per year with 48.6 percent of all disposable income. This is the second factoid in a series of four factoids that details the annual mid-year Consumer Expenditure Survey report (mid 2015 to mid 2016) by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The report divides the 129 million households in the U.S. into 20 percent quintiles of around 25.8 million consumer units each from the lowest to highest earners. There are distinct household characteristics that separate the income levels.
Most notable is that the higher the income level, on average the more people in the household. The highest 20 percent have almost double the number of people (3.1 persons on average) compared to 1.6 persons on average in the lowest 20 percentile. This reflects the higher income concentration of married couple families. The top 20 percent also have on average 2.0 earners while the lowest earning households have 0.5 earners. Also, the lower the household income, the higher concentration of individuals over 65 years and the fewer the number of children. The highest income households have on average three vehicles, compared to less than one for the lowest group. All of these characteristics contribute to the things consumers buy for their households in junction with their ability to pay.
Essentials like food, shelter, utilities, gasoline, and healthcare eat up much of the income of lower income families, leaving less disposable income for non essentials. The percent of income being spent on most essential goods or services declines as the income brackets increase. As expected, Shelter consumes the greatest portion of each income bracket – at 17.5 percent for the highest earners on up to 25.1 percent for the lowest. While households with more money spend a smaller share of income on essentials, the amount of money spent is much greater. For those in the lowest 20 percent, an average expenditure of food is $3,651 at 15.1 percent of their earnings, while the highest 20 percent on average spends $12,646 – just 11.3 percent of income. For Furniture and Equipment, all levels of income still spend between 2.6 percent to 3.3 percent of their incomes.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey, Mid-year Report 2015 to 2016