Household Energy Expenditures, 1982–2005
David B. Cashin , Leslie McGranahan
In this Chicago Fed Letter, the authors look at energy consumption over time and across groups. They find that energy consumption represented approximately 7% of expenditures between 1990 and 2004, a decrease from 11% in the early years of the 1980s and an average of 9% throughout the 1980s. They estimate energy expenditures made up approximately 8.5% of total household expenditures in 2005. Across demographic groups, the authors find that energy spending shares decline but energy expenditure levels increase as income increases. They also find that most groups that spend more on home heating as a share of total expenditure spend less on gasoline. The exception to this is the working poor, who spend a high fraction of their total expenditure on both gasoline and home energy.
