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EMBARGOED UNTIL RELEASE AT 8:30 A.M. EDT, Thursday, April 30, 2018
BEA 18-20

Personal Income and Outlays, March 2018

Personal income increased $47.8 billion (0.3 percent) in March according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $39.8 billion (0.3 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $61.7 billion (0.4 percent).

Real DPI increased 0.2 percent in March and Real PCE increased 0.4 percent. The PCE price index increased less than 0.1 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent.

  2017 2018
  Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar.
  Percent change from preceding month
Personal income:
Current dollars 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3
Disposable personal income:
Current dollars 0.3 0.4 0.9 0.3 0.3
Chained (2009) dollars 0.1 0.2 0.5 0.1 0.2
Personal consumption expenditures (PCE):
Current dollars 0.7 0.5 0.2 0.0 0.4
Chained (2009) dollars 0.5 0.3 -0.1 -0.2 0.4
Price indexes:
PCE 0.2 0.1 0.4 0.2 0.0
PCE, excluding food and energy 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.2
Price indexes: Percent change from month one year ago
PCE 1.7 1.7 1.7 1.7 2.0
PCE, excluding food and energy 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.6 1.9

The increase in personal income in March primarily reflected increases in wages and salaries, social security benefits, and dividend income (table 3).

The $50.0 billion increase in real PCE in March reflected an increase of $24.2 billion in spending for goods and a $26.8 billion increase in spending for services (table 7). Within goods, purchases of recreational goods and vehicles was the leading contributor to the increase. Within services, the largest contributor to the increase was spending for household electricity and gas. Detailed information on monthly real PCE spending can be found in Table 2.3.6U.

Personal outlays increased $62.3 billion in March (table 3). Personal saving was $460.6 billion in March and the personal saving rate, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 3.1 percent (table 1).

Updates to Personal Income and Outlays

Estimates have been revised for January and February. The percent change from the preceding month for current-dollar personal income, and for current-dollar and chained (2009) dollar DPI and PCE -- revised and as published in last month's release -- are shown below.

  Change from preceeding month
  November December
  Previous Revised Previous Revised Previous Revised Previous Revised
  (Billions of dollars) (Percent) (Billions of dollars) (Percent)
Personal income:
Current dollars 74.7 34.2 0.4 0.4 67.3 57.1 0.4 0.3
Disposable Personal income:
Current dollars 142.7 129.3 1.0 0.9 53.9 42.6 0.4 0.3
Chained (2009) dollars 75.7 63.9 0.6 0.5 22.7 1.6 0.2 0.0
Personal consumption expenditures:
Current dollars 21.3 32.7 0.2 0.2 27.7 1.6 0.2 0.0
Chained (2009) dollars -27.7 -17.9 -0.2 -0.1 1.4 -18.6 0.0 -0.2
Upcoming Annual Update of the National Income and Product Accounts
BEA will release the results of the 15th comprehensive (or benchmark) update of the national income and product accounts (NIPAs)in conjunction with the second quarter 2018 "advance" estimate on July 27, 2018. For more information, see the Technical Note. Details on the planned statistical, definitional, and presentational changes are available in the April Survey of Current Business article "Preview of the 2018 Comprehensive Update of the National Income and Product Accounts." An article in the September Survey will describe the estimates in detail. Revised NIPA table stubs and news release stubs will be available in June.

 

Next release: May 31, 2018 at 8:30 A.M. EDT
Personal Income and Outlays: April 2018