Food Expenditure Share

How It Works

Food expenditure share is one of the most important equity metrics in consumer economics, known as Engel's Law: as income rises, the percentage spent on food falls (even as absolute food spending increases). In 2022, the average American household spent 11.3% of disposable income on food — 6.1% on food at home and 5.2% on food away from home. But this average masks enormous inequality. Households in the lowest income quintile (earning under $23,000) spend an estimated 30-35% of after-tax income on food, while those in the top quintile (earning over $120,000) spend 8-10%. This means food inflation is profoundly regressive — the same 10% increase in grocery prices absorbs 3.5% of a low-income family's budget versus under 1% of a high-income family's. The Cheeseburger Index illustrates this in miniature: a $0.50 increase in burger cost is trivial for high earners but meaningful for a family on SNAP benefits (where the maximum per-meal allocation is about $2.87 per person). Internationally, Americans spend a relatively low share of income on food — many developing nations average 30-50%. The USDA tracks food expenditure data through the Consumer Expenditure Survey and Food Expenditure Series.

Related Terms

• Cost of Living — The amount of money needed to maintain a particular standard of living in a given location, including housing, food, transportation, healthcare, and taxes.
• Food at Home vs. Food Away from Home — The BLS classification dividing all food spending into groceries and cooking ingredients (food at home) versus restaurants, fast food, and takeout (food away from home).
• Wage-to-Burger Ratio — The number of minutes a worker earning the median or minimum wage must work to afford a homemade cheeseburger — a practical measure of food affordability that accounts for both price and income changes.