How we built “25-to-34-year-olds spend the same share of income on cars as 45-to-54-year-olds — who earn nearly $39,000 more” — the metric, the sources, the limitations, and how to reproduce every number.
The metric
Car-cost income burden by age cohort = (BLS CE Transportation - Public transportation) / CE income before taxes, per age-of-reference-person bracket.
Breakdown dimension: age of household (consumer-unit) reference person. Data vintage: BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey LB04 2014–2024 (latest annual 2024); FRED [TERMCBAUTO48NS,CPIAUCSL]; Census ACS 2024.
Sources
- BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey (classification LB04, 2014–2024; series IDs: CXUTRANSLB0401M, CXUPUBTRANSLB0401M, CXUVEHFINCHLB0401M, CXUINCBEFTXLB0401M, CXUINCAFTTXLB0401M)
- FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis): series TERMCBAUTO48NS, CPIAUCSL
- U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2024
Canopy Press analysis of BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey, Census ACS, and FRED data.
How it’s computed
All figures are deterministic arithmetic on the official series above — no estimates, no modeling. Raw API responses are snapshotted at the stated vintage; every published figure must reproduce from those snapshots before publication (an automated audit gate recomputes the table, the chart values, and the CSV byte-for-byte, and blocks publication on any mismatch).
Limitations
- All figures are all-household (consumer-unit) means spanning vehicle owners and non-owners.
- Under-25 excluded from the headline comparison (thin, volatile cell: 9.9-20.2% over 2014-2024).
- The 2014->2024 trend is a population-mean fact; an ownership-rate (composition) contribution is not excluded.
- Burden is a same-year nominal income share; inflation cancels in the ratio.
Reproduce it
Pull the series listed above from the official APIs at the stated vintage and recompute. Verification values (recomputed before publish):
| Check | Value |
|---|---|
| burden_25_34_2024 | 11.6 |
| burden_45_54_2024 | 11.2 |
| income_gap | 38627.0 |
| burden_25_34_2014 | 13.7 |
| decade_series_25_34 | [13.7, 14.2, 12.9, 12.3, 12.9, 12.6, 12.5, 13.1, 12.6, 12.4, 11.6] |
Accountability
Canopy Press research is produced by a methodology-driven, human-overseen pipeline. John Fox, Founder & Head of Research, is responsible for the data methodology and editorial standards behind this asset. Corrections: [email protected]. See our Editorial Standards and the research changelog.