By Julia Fanzeres and Jeffrey Sparshott
Bloomberg News
(TNS)
Housing and food made up nearly half of U.S. households’ spending in 2025, the most in 15 years amid rising rents, homeowner costs and beef prices.
On average, American families spent $1,988 more on the two categories combined than in 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. And that was before the Iran war sent some grocery prices and utility costs surging this year.
At the same time, average pretax income rose 6.4% to $110,847 in 2025, outpacing both inflation and expenditures, the annual Consumer Expenditure Survey shows.
The figures help explain the tension between improving household finances and downbeat views of the economy, and why affordability is a central issue in the upcoming midterm elections. While Americans had more money coming in, more of what they spent went to necessities.
Food and housing—which includes rent, utilities and household furniture—were the only two major spending categories to post statistically significant increases last year, according to the BLS.
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Housing remained the largest household expense, accounting for 33.9% of total expenditures. Excluding a jump in 2020 after COVID-19 hit, that share was the highest since 2010.
The share of spending Americans dedicate to food, meanwhile, has been rising since 2020 and at 13% is now the highest since 2011. The dollar value of the food budget—up 4.6% to $10,633 in 2025—outpaced the increase in total spending.
Americans spent $1,579 on meat, poultry, fish and eggs last year. That’s 11.7% more than in 2024 and twice as much as in 2010.
Those products accounted for about 24% of grocery spending in 2025, up from 19% in 2023. Over those two years, protein accounted for about 95% of the increase in average food-at-home spending.
Photo credit: tommao wang/Unsplash
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