Resources
- Stay informed about BEA developments by reading The BEA Wire, signing up for BEA’s email subscription service, or following @BEA_News on X.
- Historical time series for these estimates can be accessed in BEA’s Interactive Data Application.
- Access BEA data by registering for BEA’s Data Application Programming Interface.
- For more on BEA’s statistics, see our online journal, the Survey of Current Business.
- For upcoming economic indicators, see BEA’s news release schedule.
- For complete information on the data sources and estimating methods used to estimate regional price parities, real personal consumption expenditures, and real personal income, see “Regional Price Parities, Real Personal Consumption Expenditures, and Real Personal Income.”
Definitions
Regional price parities (RPPs) are regional price levels expressed as a percentage of the overall national price level for a given year. The price level is determined by the average prices paid by consumers for the mix of goods and services consumed in each region.
Detailed Consumer Price Index (CPI) price data are adjusted to obtain average price levels for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics areas.1 These are allocated to counties in combination with direct price and expenditure data on housing rents from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.
County data are then aggregated to states and metropolitan areas.
Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) at RPPs is current-dollar PCE divided by the price parity for a given year and region.2
Real PCE is PCE at RPPs divided by the national PCE price index. The result is real PCE in constant dollars (using 2017 as the reference year). Using “area A” in “year T” as an example:
| (1) Area A's PCE in year T is divided by the RPP |
(2) Area A's PCE at RPP is deflated by the U.S. PCE price index for year T |
(3) Area A's real PCE for year T |
| $150/1.050 = $142.9 | $142.9/1.200 = $119.0 | $119.0 |
| Note. Dollar amounts are in billions. | ||
Total real PCE in the United States is derived as the sum of the regional estimates and net expenditures abroad by U.S. residents divided by the U.S. PCE price index.
Personal income at RPPs is current-dollar personal income divided by the price parity for a given year and region. A balancing factor is applied so the sum of personal income at RPPs across regions equals the current-dollar sum.
Real personal income is personal income at RPPs divided by the national PCE price index. The result is real personal income in constant dollars (using 2017 as the reference year).
Estimates of real personal income in the United States are derived as the sum of the regional estimates divided by the U.S. PCE price index.
Implicit regional price deflator is the product of the RPP and the national PCE price index. It is equal to current-dollar PCE divided by real PCE.