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. Burgernomics 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.