by Calculated Risk on 8/30/2010 08:30:00 AM
Monday, August 30, 2010
Personal Income, Spending increase in July
From the BEA: Personal Income and Outlays, July 2010
Personal income increased $30.0 billion, or 0.2 percent ... Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $44.1 billion, or 0.4 percent
...
Real PCE -- PCE adjusted to remove price changes -- increased 0.2 percent in July, compared with an increase of 0.1 percent in June.
...
Personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income was 5.9 percent in July, compared with 6.2 percent in June.

This graph shows real personal income less transfer payments since 1969.
This measure of economic activity is moving sideways - similar to what happened following the 2001 recession.
This month the saving rate decreased slightly ...

I expect the saving rate to rise further - perhaps to 8% or more.
The increase in income was good news, but personal income less transfer payments are still only 1.2% above the low of last year - and still 5.5% below the pre-recession peak.