News Release

EMBARGOED UNTIL RELEASE AT 8:30 A.M. EDT, Friday, September 28, 2018
BEA 18-52

Personal Income and Outlays, August 2018

Personal income increased $60.3 billion (0.3 percent) in August according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $51.4 billion (0.3 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $46.4 billion (0.3 percent).

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

  2018
  Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug.
  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 0.4 0.3 0.3
Chained (2012) dollars 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.2
Personal consumption expenditures (PCE):
Current dollars 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.4 0.3
Chained (2012) dollars 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2
Price indexes:
PCE 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1
PCE, excluding food and energy 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.2 0.0
Price indexes: Percent change from month one year ago
PCE 2.0 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.2
PCE, excluding food and energy 1.9 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0

The increase in personal income in August primarily reflected increases in wages and salaries, government social benefits to persons, and nonfarm proprietors’ income (table 3).

The $28.7 billion increase in real PCE in August reflected an increase of $15.3 billion in spending for goods and a $14.3 billion increase in spending for services (table 7). Within goods, other nondurable goods was the leading contributor to the increase. Within services, the largest contributor to the increase was spending for health care. Detailed information on monthly real PCE spending can be found in Table 2.3.6U.

Personal outlays increased $47.1 billion in August (table 3). Personal saving was $1,032.3 billion in August and the personal saving rate, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 6.6 percent (table 1).

Updates to Personal Income and Outlays

Estimates have been updated for April through July. The percent change from the preceding month for current-dollar personal income, and for current-dollar and chained (2012) dollar DPI and PCE -- revised and previously published in last month's release -- are shown below.

  Change from preceeding month
  June July
  Previous Revised Previous Revised Previous Revised Previous Revised
  (Billions of dollars) (Percent) (Billions of dollars) (Percent)
Personal income:
Current dollars 66.1 70.5 0.4 0.4 54.8 51.9 0.3 0.3
Disposable Personal income:
Current dollars 59.6 64.0 0.4 0.4 52.5 45.5 0.3 0.3
Chained (2012) dollars 38.9 43.0 0.3 0.3 30.8 22.8 0.2 0.2
Personal consumption expenditures:
Current dollars 51.2 60.4 0.4 0.4 49.3 62.7 0.4 0.4
Chained (2012) dollars 32.8 41.4 0.3 0.3 29.6 40.6 0.2 0.3

Next release: October 29, 2018 at 8:30 A.M. EDT
Personal Income and Outlays: September 2018