Characteristics of Top Spending Households Region
September 13,
2019 by Laurie Northington in General 
A snapshot of today’s top-spending furniture consumers looks to be high-earning married couples, in their late 30s and early 40s with young children, living in urban areas. Using data from the 2017 Consumer Expenditure Survey, this is the final factoid in a series of four factoids delving into key household characteristics – age, income, marriage/children status, occupation, population, and region.
With the majority of larger U.S. urban areas in the Northeast, it is not surprising the region has the highest annual furniture expenditure at $587. And even though the South has the lowest expenditures per households at $470, because of the region’s size, the South accounts for 38.3% of total furniture spending – well above the Northeast (17.9%) and the Midwest and West, both at 22%.
Source: Consumer Expenditure Survey 2017, Bureau of Labor Statistics, which in 2017 calculated at a ratio of .63 versus Personal Consumption Expenditures published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (see methodology box below “ Methodology: The CE versus the PCE”