As I blogged yesterday, Eurostat released data on individual consumption and GDP per capita for EU28 for 2013. There are different metrics for measuring income and spending per capita and I blogged on the Actual Individual Consumption and GDP per capita indices relative to EU28 yesterday here.
Updating the database for the other metric: Nominal Expenditure per Inhabitant, Actual Individual Consumption in Euro terms, here are the results:
Over recent years, Ireland sustained significant declines in consumption spending per person living in the country. How severe were these declines? Compared to pre-crisis average (2003-2007) our consumption was down 2.8% in 2013. This is the second most severe impact of a recession on households' consumption after Greece.
As the result of this decline, our ranking has deteriorated as well. In 2008, Ireland's consumption per capita ranked third in the EU28. In 2013 and 2013 we ranked 11th. If in 2007 Ireland's households' consumption exceeded that of the EU15 average by more than 31%, in 2013 this declined to only 5%.
Lastly, in raw numbers terms, our consumption expenditure per inhabitant in 2013 stood at EUR21,565 - below that of any other advanced euro area economy, save the 'peripherals'.
At its peak in 2007, our consumption expenditure per inhabitant was EUR24,978. More ominously - and in line with the dynamics in Domestic Demand reflected in our National Accounts - Irish individual consumption has now declined in nominal terms in every year starting from 2008, although the rate of decline y/y dropped to 0.19% in 2013, against decline of 0.32% in 2012, 0.48% in 2011, 2.9% in 2010, 9.9% in 2009 and 0.35% in 2008.
Remember: we have booming consumer confidence, claims of improving retail sales (not much of evidence of such) and generally positive outlook on the economy… and yet, consumption (aka demand) is declining, year after year after year for six years straight... uninterrupted.
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