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by rawgabbit 9 days ago
I have a hard time believing healthcare expenses is not in the top three.
1 comments

It might be that a lot of the cost doesn't show up in the data because it comes out of your paycheck before it's "yours," in the form of your employer's contribution to health insurance premiums. (Anecdotally this is true for me - "my" portion of premiums would not be in the top three, but the total premiums are #2 after housing (for a while when I had roommates they were #1, which is ridiculous).)

(BLS gets this data from surveys: https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cex/home.htm )

Correct. You can argue this is money that you’d otherwise get if it wasn’t going to healthcare, and that’s a fair point. But then you have to count that in the top line income.