Evening star., 1932-05-14
SPENDING |
ITEM IS ANALYzED|
Business Week Survey Re-
veaIs Importance of Vaca-
tion Expenditures.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

NEW YORK, May 14.-IncreaSed
leisure time among those who have to
work for a living has brought an in
crease in the proportion of the Ameri-
can consumer dollar spent for private
transportation, health, education, per-
ing to the Business Week. Presenting
an analysis of the third of series of
20 surveys of the domestic consumer
market, it shows that 1876 per cent of
the 100000 900, 900 expended by Amer
leans annually is paid out for these
items
Strikingly evident, says the survey
report, is the fact that the proportion
of each dollar going for household
services and for utilities including rent,
laundry, domestic servants, electricity,
telephone and common carrier trans
portation, has on the whole declined in
the last IL years, or at best remained
stationary.
Radio Ownership.
The survey developed the fact that
Americans today own 12,078, 900 radios,
as against a total of $4,000 in 1919.
There are in service in the United
States today approximately 18,434,000
private passenger cars, which total
compares with 5,417,000 in 1919.
American youngsters and grown-ups
play on 8,674O0O pianos today. In the
year 1919. 6.ol3,000 pianofortes were
giving forth music in American homes.
Mechanical refrigerators in service in
1919 totaled approximately 1000 for
the whole American consumer market.
Today, according to the survey, 2,625,
900 of these refrigerators are keeping
can homes. approximately 1000 fuel
Oil burners were owned by American
families in 1919. Today more than
635,000 of the oil heaters are in
service.
Another striking fact brought out in
the survey, according to the analysis,
is the practically steady decline in the
proportion of high replacement goods.
such as food and clothing, from 66.6
per cent of the total market in 1919 to
60 per cent in 1880, with only slight
increase from 1929 to 1880. The pro-
portion of expenditures on durable
goods, such as household equipment
and automobiles, has remained almost
constant over the 12-year period, ex-
cept for rise in the years from 1923
to 1926, rejecting chiefly the influence
Of increased expenditures on housing
and household equipment accompany
ing the residential building boom.
The relative decline in the proper
ton spent for high replacement goods, -
says the Business Week, has been
compensated almost wholly by cor
responding rise in the proportion of
expenditure for service, rising from
297 per cent in 1880, and increasing
even in the first year Of depression,
1929-3o.
Domestic Purchases.
"In short. it is clear that the con-
sumner market for business is today
not only less a merchandise market
and more a service market than it was
IL years ago. but even in the mer-
chandise market the high replacement
goods apparently have not been hold
ing their share of the consumer S
dollar"
Merchandise with a high replace
ment rate and services currently con-
sumed together cover almost 90 per
cent of the domestic purchases of con-
sumner goods and Of services COM
mercially sold.
The style factor in the merchandise
field is not as important in expanding
the volume of consumption as has been
supposed, the survey report states. The
most powerful influence in shifting the
distribution of the consumer dollar
during these IL years was probably
that Of leisure or the demand for ac-
companying increased purchasing pow
er which permitted expansion in con-
sumption of services.