KUALA LUMPUR (July 28): Malaysian households’ average monthly expenditures rose at a faster pace than their gross income between 2019 and 2022, mainly underpinned by spending on housing and utilities, food, restaurants and hotels, as well as transportation, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).

On average, Malaysian households spent RM5,150 per month in 2022, up 3.7% from 2019, according to the department’s Household Expenditure Survey published on Friday (July 28).

“In addition to the income received by households, part of this expenditure is financed by non-income receipts such as government assistance and special withdrawals of savings through the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF),” said DOSM.

The department said 66.9% of their spending focuses on four main expenditure groups, namely housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (23.2%); food and non-alcoholic beverages (16.3%); restaurant and hotel (16.1%); and transportation (11.3%).

Spending on restaurants and hotels increased by 2.4 percentage points to 16.1% in 2022, from 13.7% in 2019, in line with the increase in spending on eating out to 15.3% from 11.2% and the decrease in eating at home to 16.3% from 16.9%, according to DOSM’s data.

In terms of income, DOSM’s Household Income Survey shows average household income grew at 2.4% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) to RM8,479, slower than the 4.2% CAGR recorded in 2019.

Median income grew at a CAGR of 2.4% to RM6,338 in 2022 from RM5,873 in 2019.

The survey was done based on a mean household size of 3.8 persons and average of 1.8 income earners, covering 7.9 million households in 2022, up from 7.3 million in 2019.