The Standard of Living in the United States

A common approach to the evaluation of the standard of living is based on a function of real income. In the United States this often takes the form of CPI‐deflated mean household income. Material well‐being is more appropriately evaluated using a consumption‐based index. Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys we find that real mean income provides an inaccurate representation of the level and trend of the standard of living relative to real per equivalent total expenditure in the postwar United States. The differences between real income and real total expenditure per household equivalent member are found at all levels of aggregation.