"Economists are pessimists: they've predicted 8 of the last 3 depressions."
--Barry Asmus

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Friday, April 29, 2011

Personal Income and Outlays

WHO CARES!!!!  ROYAL WEDDING!!!!!
 
Ahem.
 
Personal income and outlays tracks overall changes in - at the rick of sounding stupid about this - personal income.  And personal outlays.  Essentially, how much has the average person's income changed, how much has their spending changed, and how much is one particular measure of inflation changed.  This is big, because this represents around one-third of GDP.
 
Last month, personal income was a disappointing 0.3%, consumer spending was up an expectation-beating 0.7%, and the core PCE was up 0.2% (which met expectations).  Disposable personal income was up 0.3%, although real DPI[1] was down 0.1%.  Personal current taxes increased $2.2 billion, personal savings as a percentage of DPI fell to 5.8%, and the PCE price index increased 0.4%.
 
For March, the Econoday-surveyed analysts are mildly optimistic.  They're expecting to see Personal Income increase 0.4%, Consumer Spending increase 0.5%, and the Core PCE price index increase only 0.1%.  For the actual results, we will turn to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
 
The Personal Income and Outlays, March 2011 report shows Personal Income increasing 0.5%, consumer spending increasing 0.6%, and the Core PCE price index increased 0.1%.  In other words we beat expectations on two out of three items, which is nice to see after yesterday's dismal Q1 GDP showing.
 
Other interesting facts include disposable personal income increasing 0.6%, real disposable personal income increasing 0.1%, and the PCE price index increasing 0.4%.  Personal savings as a percentage of DPI fell to 5.5%, and personal current taxes increased $2.5 billion.
 
I now return you to your regularly scheduled ROYAL WEDDING!!!!!!
 
[1] Disposable Personal Income adjusted to account for price changes.

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