The bar chart below shows shares of expenditures for five major categories in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan in the year 2009. Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. You should write at least 150 words.

The bar graph below presents five major categories of expenditures (Food, Housing, Transportation, Health Care, and Clothing) in four different countries (US,

UK

,

Canada

, and

Japan

) in 2009.

Overall

, housing was the most costly category among the four countries in 2009,

whereas

the least amount of money was spent on healthcare products. In terms of housing, the US spent above 25% of its expenditure, followed by the

UK

, at about 23%.

Canada

spent the smallest number of money on housing compared to the other three countries, at 20%.

By contrast

, only above 5% of

Canada

’s expenses on clothing and the US spent the lowest amount of it, at approximately 4%. Food was the second highest-costing category where

Japan

and the

UK

spent above 20% on it and the US and

Canada

consumed almost 15% of it. It can be seen that there was a significant difference in expenditure between the US and the

UK

, as the US spent on healthcare at about 8%,

whereas

the

UK

only spent about 2.5%. Meanwhile,

Canada

and

Japan

paid for it in the same percentage, at 4%. Another clear difference in the expenditure was that transportation was the most spent category in

Canada

, at 20%, but

Japan

only spent 10% of it.