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Farm Household Well-Being: Comparing Consumption- and Income-Based Measures

by Carol Jones, Daniel Milkove, and Laura Paszkiewicz

Economic Research Report No. (ERR-91) 47 pp, February 2010

Cover Image for ERR91 Household economic well-being can be gauged by the financial resources (income/wealth) available to the household or by the standard of living enjoyed by household members (consumption). Based on responses to USDA's annual Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), a joint effort by the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, ERS has long published estimates of farm household income and wealth. This report presents, for the first time, estimates of consumption-based measures of well-being for farm households based on new questions in ARMS. The consumption measure provides a different perspective from income or wealth on farm households’ well-being relative to that of all U.S. households.

Keywords: household consumption, household income, household well-being measures, farm households, self-employed households, permanent income, permanent income hypothesis

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Charts and graphs (in .png format) from this report are available in the .zip file listed below. The .zip file also contains a document (readme.txt) that lists the name and title of each chart or graph file.

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Last updated: Sunday, May 27, 2012

For more information contact: Carol Jones, Daniel Milkove, and Laura Paszkiewicz