Household consumption includes spending on food and alcoholic beverages, housing, apparel, transportation, health care, entertainment, personal care products and services, reading and education, tobacco and smoking supplies, cash contributions to people outside the household, and other miscellaneous spending. Expenditures are adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers Research Series (CPI-U-RS).

A consumer unit comprises either: (1) all members of a household related by blood, marriage, adoption, or other legal arrangements; (2) a person living alone or sharing a household with others or living as a roomer in a private home or lodging house or in permanent living quarters in a hotel or motel, but who is financially independent; or (3) two or more persons living together who use their income to make joint expenditure decisions. To be considered financially independent, at least two of the three major expense categories—housing, food, and other living expenses—have to be provided entirely, or in part, by the respondent.

A consumer unit’s reference person is the first member mentioned by the respondent when asked to “Start with the name of the persons or one of the persons who owns or rents the home.”

For 1995 through 2012, the BLS reports breakdowns by the education level of the unit's reference person. From 2012 on, they report breakdowns by the highest education level of any member of the housing unit.