Personal income increased $50.5 billion (0.2 percent at a monthly rate) in August. Disposable personal income —personal income less personal current taxes— increased $34.2 billion (0.2 percent). Personal outlays—the sum of personal consumption expenditures, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments—increased $48.3 billion (0.2 percent) and consumer spending increased $47.2 billion (0.2 percent). Personal saving was $1.05 trillion and the personal saving rate—personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income—was 4.8 percent in August.
Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 3.0 percent in the second quarter of 2024, according to the “third” estimate. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 1.6 percent (revised). The second-quarter increase in real GDP was the same as previously estimated in the “second” estimate released in August.
The U.S. net international investment position, the difference between U.S. residents’ foreign financial assets and liabilities, was –$22.52 trillion at the end of the second quarter of 2024, according to statistics released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Assets totaled $36.00 trillion, and liabilities were $58.52 trillion. At the end of the first quarter, the net investment position was –$21.29 trillion (revised).
The U.S. current-account deficit, which reflects the combined balances on trade in goods and services and income flows between U.S. residents and residents of other countries, widened by $25.8 billion, or 10.7 percent, to $266.8 billion in the second quarter of 2024. The widening mostly reflected an expanded deficit on goods. The second-quarter deficit was 3.7 percent of current-dollar gross domestic product, up from 3.4 percent in the first quarter.
A blog from BEA Director Vipin Arora
BEA’s price index for personal consumption expenditures—the PCE price index—gets a lot of attention when it’s released every month. For good reason: the Federal Reserve and policymakers around the world rely on it as a key inflation gauge.