April 11th, 2012 
Vijaianand 
Comparing US Consumer Spending Behavior with other countries
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released a fascinating report on how American consumers spend their money, and how that compares to spending behavior of their counterparts in other rich countries.
The numbers refer to 2009, when the United States recession hit its lowest point, so of course spending habits may have changed since then. The comparisons are still striking, though. For example, Americans spend a relatively small share of their spending on clothing as well as recreation and entertainment, at least compared to their counterparts in these other countries.
Not surprisingly, Americans devote a higher share of their budgets to out-of-pocket health care costs — 6.9 percent, versus about 4 percent in Canada and Japan and 1.4 percent in Britain. Another interesting fact, US Consumer spend more than any other rich countries around the world on their health care costs. See the detail info at Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Comparing current US Consumer Spending Behavior with Americans 50 & 100 years ago
The author from the Atlantic consumed the information reported by Bureau of Labor statistics and published an article with colorful charts to paint us elaborate picture to understand than the numbers.
Here is a snapshot of quick takeaways,
The typical household haul in 1901 is about $750. Families spend a whopping 80% of that on food, clothes, and homes.
In 1950 which is still called has the golden era with full employment, food has gotten much cheaper compared to wages, and its share of the family budget has declined from 43% to 30%.
In the last 50 years, food and apparel’s share of family has fallen from 42% to 17% (and remember, we were near 60% in 1900) as we’ve found cheaper ways to eat and clothe ourselves. Food production got more efficient, and we offshored the making of clothes to other countries with cheaper labor. As a result, apparel’s share of the pie, which hardly changed in the first half of the century, shrank in the second half by two-thirds.
To read more about it, go to TheAtlantic.com
Source courtesy: mymoneyblog.com