Czech households spend most of their income on living expenses
Czech households spend the biggest share of their income on living expenses, according to the results of a study by the Czech Statistics Office comparing household spending in the years 1995 to 2015.
“The nature of spending in Czech households has changed considerably since 1995. The costs of living have increased, while food or clothing expenses have gone down,” Vladimír Kermit, Director of the National Accounts Department at the Czech Statistics Office, told the news site Aktualne.cz.
At the moment, some 27 percent of Czech households’ income, which amounts to an average 4511 crowns, is spent on rent and other living expenses, such as electricity, gas and water payments.
Food is the second largest expenditure for Czech households. On average, they spend some 17 percent of their income (that is around 2,800 crowns) on food. Those costs are followed by transport expenses, which amount to around nine percent of the overall income.
The biggest increase in household expenses over the past 20 years was recorded in the field of telecommunication services and health care. Compared to 1995, prices for telecommunication services have gone up by more than 200 percent and health care expenses by 140 percent.
In terms of the overall share of household expenses, however, there has not been any major change. Czech households spend about one percent more on telecommunication services and only about 0.7 percent more on health care.
Household spending in 2015 amounted to a total of 2,109 billion crowns, which is 174 percent more than in 1995. In 2015, every Czech spent on average 16.672 crowns a month.
In 2015, employees had an average monthly wage of 27,231 crowns which is around three times more than in 1995. The average wage of entrepreneurs has increased 1.5 times, to 46,668 crowns.
