Medary.com

From Visual Economics comes this interesting chart depicting where the average American family spends its money: A larger version is viewable at the above link.

Being a semi-loyal Dave Ramsey listener, I had one immediate observation: Where is "debt service" on the chart? I don't see it.

Still, here's how it breaks down, in chart form, from largest to smallest percentage:

20.2% Shelter
17.6% Gasoline, motor oil
10.1% Pensions, Social Security
7.0% Food at home
7.0% Utilities, fuels, public services
6.5% Vehicle purchases ("net outlay")
6.3% Transportation expenses-"other transportation"
5.7% Health care
5.4% Entertainment
5.4% Food away from home
3.8% Apparel and services
3.7% Cash contributions
3.6% Household furnishings, equipment
2.0% Household operations
1.9% Education
1.6% Miscellaneous
1.3% Housekeeping supplies
1.2% Personal care (products & services)
0.9% Alcoholic beverages
0.7% Tobacco and supplies
0.6% Life, other personal insurance
0.2% Reading

Another odd omission is . . . taxes. Apparently, to the Visual Economics people, taxes and debt service (i.e. interest) aren't household expenses. Well, isn't that nice to know? Also, going to the source--the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the data are from 2007, NOT April, 2009. And, while debt service isn't broken out in the BLS data, taxes paid are, which makes it a fairly egregious omission from the chart, in my humble opinion.

Burrowing further into the BLS stats, here's where the average family's money comes from:

All Income $63,091
79.76% Wages and Salaries
10.11% Social Security, private and government retirement
5.46% Self-employment income
2.77% Interest, dividends, rental income, other property income
0.34% Unemployment and worker's compensation, veteran's benefits
0.53% Public assistance, supplemental security income, food stamps
0.73% Regular contributions for support
0.30% Other income

And, finally, how much of that $63,000 goes to taxes?

3.54% Personal taxes
2.49% Federal only
1.05% State, local, and other

Of course, if you're actually making $63,000, you're paying a LOT more than 3.54% of your gross income ($1,569 a year) in Federal taxes, aren't you? I seem to recall my federal tax, back in the day when I was in that approximate income class, was closer to $5k a year. Ah, the wonder of averaging the tax bill over the entire population--where nearly half of everyone doesn't pay a single cent. So, one way to think of it is, if you're that $63,000 person, any Federal tax over $1,569 that you're paying, is pulling the load for someone else who isn't. And, the beauty of a "progressive" income tax is, the more you make, the more freeloaders--oops--unfortunate poor people--oops--your saintly fellow citizens you get to subsidize. This is called "fair." Parenthetically, I'm not sure how this figure of 3.54% squares with the proposals to replace the Federal income tax with an 18% "flat" tax--the so-called "Fair Tax." Something is seriously screwy with this number, I think, but I might just not quite comprehend what I'm looking at. Wouldn't be the first time.

Anyway, while I don't think this graphics rates a full FAIL, it is not completely chock-full of WIN either.