Household Spending

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Highlights

September household spending dropped 1.9 percent on the year after sinking 4.1 percent in August. The decline was led by a continued sharp drop in spending on automobiles and a pullback in spending on TVs. Many households had already bought new digital TVs ahead of July 24, when Japan terminated analogue broadcasting services. Transportation & communication spending slid 11.0 percent while fuel, light & water charges dropped 10.0 percent on the year. Spending on clothing & footwear dropped 5.0 percent. On the plus side, housing was up 9.9 percent and spending on furniture & household supplies was up 6.5 percent. Medical spending was up 2.3 percent.

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	Actual	Consensus	Previous
Year over Year	-1.9%	-3.3%	-4.1%
Month over Month	0%	-0.4%	0%
Released on 10/27/2011 23:30 for Sep, 2011

 Definition

Wage earner spending is an important gauge of personal consumption, which accounts for roughly 55 percent of Japans gross domestic product. *Release time listed is for U.S. Eastern Time of the previous day.

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Why this is important 

The report looks at spending of households and gives a picture of consumer spending. Increases in household spending are favorable for the Japanese economy because high consumer spending generally leads to higher levels of economic growth. Higher spending is also a sign of consumer optimism, as households confident in their future outlook will spend more. The preferred number is the change from the previous year. The data are part of the family income and expenditure survey which is released at the same time as the employment and unemployment data.
Frequency
Monthly

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