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Friday, October 29, 2021

Personal Income Decreased 1.0% in September, Spending Increased 0.6%

by Calculated Risk on 10/29/2021 08:35:00 AM

The BEA released the Personal Income and Outlays report for September:

Personal income decreased $216.2 billion (1.0 percent) in September according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $236.9 billion (1.3 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $93.4 billion (0.6 percent).

Real DPI decreased 1.6 percent in September and Real PCE increased 0.3 percent; goods increased 0.1 percent and services increased 0.4 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.3 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent.
emphasis added
The September PCE price index increased 4.4 percent year-over-year and the September PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 3.6 percent year-over-year.

The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through September 2021 (2012 dollars). Note that the y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the change.

Personal Consumption Expenditures Click on graph for larger image.

The dashed red lines are the quarterly levels for real PCE.

Personal income was below expectations,  and the increase in PCE was at expectations.