Basics such as food, energy, health, transport and housing account for more than half of Australian household spending

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Welfare recipients spend proportionally less of their total spending on alcohol than all other Australians, new figures show.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics released its six-yearly household expenditure statistics on Wednesday, providing an insight into the weekly spending habits of Australians.

It showed more than half of expenditure on goods and services goes towards the basics, including food, energy, health, transport, and housing.

New ABS data proves it: scares about growing welfare dependency are rubbish | Greg Jericho Read more

The average Australian spent about $846 out of their total $1,425 expenditure on basics each week, up from 56% in 1984 to 59% in 2015-16.

Housing is now the largest cost for Australian households, jumping from 13% in 1984 to 20% in 2015-16. Food accounted for 17% of household expenditure, while transport was 15%.

The data provides an insight into the spending habits of households that list government pensions and allowances as their main source of income.

It shows households relying on welfare spend just 1.8% of their total spending on alcohol, which is lower than other households by about 0.4 percentage points.

Welfare recipients spend more of their weekly household income on housing costs (22.3%) and food and non-alcohol beverages (19.5%) than other groups, although they spend less on transport.



In the past six years, the biggest spending increases across all Australian households were in education, energy, healthcare, and housing. Spending on footwear, alcohol, tobacco and clothing did not change noticeably, the ABS said.

The data also showed the extent of financial stress had reduced slightly. It showed 15% of all Australian households were reporting four or more indicators of financial stress, down from 16% in 2009-10.

Welfare drug testing punishes those 'least able to change', former AFP commissioner says Read more

Low-wealth households, or those in the lowest 20%, were spending a much higher proportion of their income on housing.

Housing costs accounted for 30% of low-wealth households’ total spending, compared with 14% for high-wealth households.

Only 5% of low-wealth households owned their own home, compared with 96% of high-wealth groups.

ABS chief economist Bruce Hockman said the data showed households’ spending had changed considerably over the decade.

“In 1984, the largest contributors to household spending were food (20%), then transport (16%) and housing (13%),” he said.

“Jump forward to 2015-16, and housing is now the largest contributor (20%), followed by food (17%) and transport costs (15%).”

