Connecticut households last year spent more on health care, housing and utilities, and non-durable goods than others in all states except Massachusetts, new federal data shows.
A report released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) said households in Connecticut recorded per capita personal consumption expenditure (PCE) spending of $52,941 in 2018, which was only surpassed by Massachusetts at $55,095.
BEA said Connecticut’s PCE rose 4 percent to $189.1 million in 2018, up from an increase of 3.3 percent in 2017. Nationally, including all 50 states and Washington, D.C., PCE rose by 5.1 percent to $42,757 in 2018.
Household spending in Connecticut was mainly driven upward by gasoline and other energy prices (13.5 percent increase), financial services and insurance (7 percent), recreation services (4.1 percent), furnishings and durable household equipment (4 percent), and health care and housing/utilities (3.8 percent), among other expenditures.
Trailing Massachusetts and Connecticut in per capita PCE spending were New Jersey ($52,729), New York ($52,701) and New Hampshire ($52,120). Per capita PCE spending in Washington, D.C., was $63,151.
Mississippi, Alabama and Oklahoma, meantime, were among the states with the lowest per capita PCE spending, BEA said.
