Lowest 20%: Household Spending

Households in the lowest 20% income quintile spent an average of $35,046 per year in 2024 - 55.4% below the national household average of $78,535. Their top three spending categories are Housing ($14,563), Food ($5,498), and Transportation ($5,105). Income is strongly associated with total household spending, and the composition of that spending shifts meaningfully as income rises.

Housing consumes 41.6% of total expenditures at $14,563 annually, a share that tends to fall as income rises (lower quintiles often spend 35-40% on housing while upper quintiles spend closer to 30%). Food spending totals $5,498 per year, or 15.7% of the budget, a ratio known to Engel's Law, which predicts that food's budget share declines as income rises. The absolute dollars spent on necessities grow with income, but the proportional commitment to discretionary categories (entertainment, personal insurance, pensions, education) grows far faster.

The BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey divides U.S. households into five equal-sized quintiles based on pre-tax income. Comparing across quintiles reveals where financial stress concentrates (lower quintiles typically spend more than they report earning, supplementing with benefits and assistance) and where savings capacity emerges (upper quintiles allocate substantially more to retirement contributions). Use the table above to see every major category, then click through to any category detail page to see how spending on that line item differs across all five income quintiles.