Real Personal Income less Transfer Payments

In the Personal Income & Outlays report for April, the BEA noted that "Personal income increased $1.97 trillion (10.5 percent) in April". This was due to a large increase in transfer payment.

Transfer payments increased by $3 trillion in April. Unemployment insurance increased from $70 billion in March, to $430 billion in April. And "Other" (mostly the CARES Act) increased by $2,600 billion in April.

Without the increase in transfer payments, Personal Income in April would have declined by about  6%.

A key measure of the health of the economy (Used by NBER in recession dating) is Real Personal Income less Transfer payments.

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This graph shows real personal income less transfer payments since 1990.

This measure of economic activity decreased 2.8% in March, compared to February, and another 6.3% in April (compared to March).