US health expenditure per capita

Americans spent more on their own health and more on their pets' food in exact proportion, which is either charming or mildly worrying depending on how you feel about dog nutrition. Perhaps we are buying better kibble out of solidarity with our own medical bills. Perhaps the pets are winning.

Both jumped sharply in 2020 for covid-specific reasons. US health expenditure per capita spiked as the pandemic loaded the system with testing, hospitalizations, and vaccines, while pet food sales surged as lockdown adoption boomed and remote workers splurged on their new companions. Two very different care budgets, both responding to the same year. The dogs, for once, had comparable healthcare inflation.

So we are left with the image of a household paying two kinds of medical bill, one for the humans and one for the hound. Neither line caused the other. Both are what being home does to a budget.