Housing, Food and Transportation Expenditures Accounted for 60.9% of Boston Area’s Average Household Budget
Households in the Greater Boston area spent an average of $101,247 per year across 2022 and 2023, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday, a third higher than the nationwide average annual household expenditure of $75,172.
At a time of regular talk on Beacon Hill of the negative consequences of Massachusetts’ high cost of living, the new data from BLS sheds light on some of the drivers of economic unease and the things attracting Bay Staters to move elsewhere. BLS reported average annual household expenditures for 22 regions, ranging from a high of $110,886 in San Francisco to a low of $71,378 in Miami.
Housing, food and transportation expenditures together accounted for 60.9 percent of the Boston area’s average household budget, BLS said, with housing alone eating up 34.5 percent of household budgets, compared to the U.S. average of 33.1 percent.
Households in the Greater Boston area spent less of their annual budgets, 13.4 percent, on transportation than the national average of 16.9 percent. About 85 percent of Boston-area households’ transportation spending was to buy and maintain private vehicles, less than the national average of 92.3 percent.
And household spending on food was essentially in line with the national average here, registering at 13 percent, compared to the national average of 12.9 percent. Boston-area households spent $7,454, or 56.7 percent of their food dollars, on food at home, BLS said. The average Boston-area household spent 1 percent of its annual budget on alcoholic beverages, just above the national average of 0.8 percent.
The BLS data released Thursday covers the “Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area,” which comprises Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Plymouth and Suffolk counties in Massachusetts as well as and Rockingham and Strafford counties in New Hampshire.
