Households in the Midwest spend a bit more each year than the national average. New figures from the U-S Department of Labor show that in 2000 and 2001, households in the U-S spent 38-thousand-796 dollars annually. In the Midwest the figure was about 600 dollars higher and the biggest part of that spending was for shelter. Housing costs accounted for 31-percent of spending or just over 12-thousand dollars. The report also shows Midwesterners spend about 77-hundred dollars a year on transportation, five-thousand dollars on food and 734 dollars on tobacco and alcohol, which is about 50 dollars more than they spend on education.
