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You are here: Home /          Publications /          EIB: Economic Information Bulletin /          Food Spending in American Households, 2003-04

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## Related Topics

              - Diet Quality & Nutrition
              - Food Consumption & Demand
              - Food Prices, Expenditures & Costs

### Food Spending in American Households, 2003-04

Hayden  Stewart
Economic Information Bulletin No. (EIB-23) 115 pp, March 2007

        Average yearly expenditures on food in U.S. urban households increased between 2003 and 2004. Over the period, annual per capita spending on food rose from $2,035 to $2,207. The 2004 average comprises $1,347 spent on food consumed at home and $860 spent on food consumed away from home. These amounts reflect a year-to-year increase of 7.9 percent in food-at-home expenditures and 9.3 percent in food-away-from-home expenditures. Wealthier urban households tended to spend more than other urban households for both food at home and food away from home, and they spent a larger share of their food budget than other households on food consumed away from home. The share of the food budget spent on food consumed away from home varied from 30 percent for the poorest group to 44 percent for the wealthiest.

**Keywords:** Food expenditures, BLS Consumer Expenditure Diary Survey, socioeconomic characteristics

**In this publication...**
            - Report summary ,    95 kb
            - Abstract, Acknowledgments, Contents, and Summary ,    57 kb
            - Introduction ,    32 kb
            - Highlights for Urban Population ,    32 kb
            - Consumer Expenditure Survey ,    36 kb
            - Definitions ,    43 kb
            - Expenditure Estimates ,    32 kb
            - Survey Procedures ,    43 kb
            - CE and Other Data Sources ,    45 kb
            - Data Limitations ,    32 kb
            - References ,    31 kb
            - Tables ,    521 kb
            - Entire report ,    804 kb

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**Last updated:** Saturday, May 26, 2012

**For more information contact:** Noel  Blisard and Hayden  Stewart

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