Band 9: The bar chart below shows shares of expenditures for five major categories in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan in the year 2009.

The given chart gives information about the percentages of consumer spending on five main categories in four different countries in 2009.

Overall, it can be seen that the largest proportion went for housing in all countries, except for Japan. Moreover, all four countries allocated less money for health care and clothing.

Regarding the three most spending categories, accommodation represented the largest expenditure, with the US leading over 25%. This was followed by the other three countries, ranging from 21% to 24%. Food was the most allocated item in Japan with 23%, which was 3% higher than in the UK. The American and the Canadian distributed around 15% of their budget for this category, being the lowest among the four. Transportation expenditure was the highest in Canada, at exactly 20%, being double that in Japan. The US and the UK’ percentages were between 15% and 17%.

The opposite trend was true for health care and clothing. In healthcare expenditure, America stood out with 7%, while other three nations only made up less than 5%. Spending on clothing was relatively lower, with both the Canadian and the British allocating 6%. the same pattern was seen in the US and Japan at 4% each.