The chart illustrates the share of expenditures for five major categories in four different countries ( the USA, Canada, the UK, and Japan) in 2009. Overall, in all countries, the main part of expenditures contained food, housing, and transportation. America and Canada surpassed other countries in the percentage of expenditures for transportation, while for food, it was the opposite.
Talking about the former sectors, the housing sector had the highest share of expenditures among all categories, and the percentages were around 26, 20, 24, and 22, in the USA, Canada, the UK, and Japan, respectively. When it comes to food, Japan and the United Kingdom had almost 21% and 24% while both America and Canada were below 15%. By contrast, the countries of North America exceeded the UK and Japan by approximately five and ten percent, respectively.
In addition, the USA was a leader in health care shares with around 8% and nearly doubled Canada and Japan, and tripled the UK. By contrast, clothing had at least five percent of expenditures in all countries except the USA with just above three percent.