News Release

EMBARGOED UNTIL RELEASE AT 8:30 a.m. EDT, Thursday, May 28, 2026
BEA 26—25

Personal Income and Outlays, April 2026

Personal income decreased less than $0.1 billion (less than 0.1 percent at a monthly rate) in April, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Disposable personal income (DPI)—personal income less personal current taxes—decreased $19.9 billion (0.1 percent), and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $111.1 billion (0.5 percent).

Disposable Personal Income, Outlays, and Saving

Personal outlays—the sum of PCE, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments—increased $114.0 billion in April. Personal saving was $611.7 billion in April, and the personal saving rate—personal saving as a percentage of DPI—was 2.6 percent.

The decrease in current-dollar personal income in April primarily reflected a decrease in farm proprietors’ income that was partly offset by an increase in compensation.

The $111.1 billion increase in current-dollar PCE in April reflected increases of $67.2 billion in spending on services and $44.0 billion in spending on goods.

Changes in Monthly Consumer Spending April 2026

Real PCE increased $18.1 billion (0.1 percent at a monthly rate) in April.

From the preceding month, the PCE price index for April increased 0.4 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent.

From the same month one year ago, the PCE price index for April increased 3.8 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 3.3 percent from one year ago.

PCE Price Indexes, Percent Change From Month One Year Ago
Personal Income and Related Measures
[Percent change from preceding month]
 MarchApril
Current-dollar personal income0.50.0
Current-dollar DPI0.5-0.1
Real DPI-0.2-0.5
Current-dollar PCE1.00.5
Real PCE0.30.1
PCE price index0.70.4
PCE price index excluding food and energy0.30.2

For definitions, statistical conventions, updates to personal income and outlays, and more information about these statistics, visit “Additional Information."

Next release: June 25, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. EDT
Personal Income and Outlays, May 2026


Technical Notes

Changes in personal income and outlays for April

The April decrease of less than $0.1 billion ($19 million) in personal income primarily reflected a decrease in farm proprietors’ income that was partly offset by an increase in compensation.

  • The decrease in farm proprietors’ income reflected a decrease in payments to farmers from the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program, which closed application submissions in mid-April.
  • Within compensation, the increase was led by private wages and salaries based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Current Employment Statistics (CES).

Legal services prices

The PCE price index for legal services was adjusted for the months of January and March. No adjustment was made for February or April. For more information on why BEA sometimes adjusts source data, refer to the FAQ "Does BEA adjust source data that are used to estimate GDP and related measures?".

Revisions to personal income

Estimates have been updated for October through March. Revisions for October through December for compensation, personal taxes, and contributions for government social insurance reflect the incorporation of fourth-quarter wage and salary data from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages program. The estimates for January through March reflect updated BLS CES data.

Related Data Tables

For the statistics highlighted in this release, as well as historical time series for these estimates, see the following data tables in BEA’s Interactive Data Application.


Table 2.6. Personal Income and Its Disposition 
Table 2.8.1. Percent Change From Preceding Period in Real PCE by Major Type of Product 
Table 2.8.5. PCE by Major Type of Product
Table 2.8.6. Real PCE by Major Type of Product 
Table 2.8.7. Percent Change From Preceding Period in Prices for PCE by Major Type of Product 
Table 2.8.11. Real PCE by Major Type of Product: Percent Change From Month One Year Ago

Note. With the next release of PIO, today’s data will be superseded, and the links above will reflect the latest data. The original data featured in this release can then be accessed in BEA’s Data Archive.