November 26, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Consumer expenditures in 2007

Average annual expenditures per consumer unit, which is similar to a household, rose 2.6 percent in 2007 following an increase of 4.3 percent in 2006. Spending kept pace with inflation in 2007 as the increase in expenditures from 2006 to 2007 was close to the 2.8 percent rise in the annual average Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) over this period.

Percent change in average annual expenditures of all consumer units, 2003-2007
[Chart data—TXT]

Moderate increases in spending on housing (3.4 percent), transportation (2.9 percent), and food (0.4 percent), the three largest components of spending, contributed to the small overall increase in 2007. Among the other major components, spending increased for personal insurance and pensions (1.3 percent), health care (3.1 percent), entertainment (13.6 percent), and apparel and services (0.4 percent).

These data come from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. Find out more in "Consumer Expenditures in 2007," (PDF) (HTML) news release 08-1746.