It is official statistics (see link on the bottom). Expenses are proportional to the distance from work.
Some US areas are most horrible in the world in this aspect.
@Vitaliy_Kiselev Interesting stuff here, but I would definitely focus on median income which is about $51-53K for US household. The average (mean) is often seen as higher (here it's listed at $63,784). Also the pre-tax and post tax numbers aren't a accurate reflection of actual percentage of income paid as tax. For people at median, it's about 40%, where the numbers reported here are 19.9%.
(Note: I'm assuming the number listed here as average annual expenditure is post-tax income, but if it includes expenditures made with credit cards, equity lines, or other loans/credit, then my 19.9% isn't accurate.)
9000$ per year for transportation - on average - WTF?!? How do you generate such high expenses?
Even though I decadently use to fly to exotic overseas locations ~3 times a year for diving trips, I would not even hit the 45000$ mark. Ok, I own a bike, not a car. Still, the few times I need other means of transportation would never stack up anywhere near 9000$...
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!