Personal income in the United States increased by $50.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, in August, according to estimates released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Disposable personal income (DPI), which is personal income less current taxes, rose by $34.2 billion, also a 0.2 percent increase. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) grew by $47.2 billion, marking another 0.2 percent rise.
The PCE price index saw a modest increase of 0.1 percent for the month. When excluding food and energy costs, the PCE price index similarly increased by 0.1 percent. Real DPI and real PCE both experienced a growth of 0.1 percent; goods showed an increase of less than 0.1 percent while services increased by 0.2 percent.
In August, current-dollar personal income was primarily driven by higher compensation levels but was partly offset by a decline in personal income receipts on assets.
The $47.2 billion rise in current-dollar PCE was attributed to a $54.8 billion increase in spending on services and a $7.6 billion decrease in spending on goods. The largest contributors within services were housing and financial services and insurance sectors, whereas new motor vehicles led the decline within goods.
Personal outlays—which include PCE, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments—rose by $48.3 billion during August. Personal saving amounted to $1.05 trillion for the month with a saving rate of 4.8 percent.
From July to August, the PCE price index edged up by 0.1 percent as prices for goods decreased by 0.2 percent while prices for services went up by 0.2 percent; food prices saw an increase of 0.1 percent and energy prices fell by 0.8 percent.
Year-over-year data showed that from August last year to this year, the PCE price index increased by 2.2 percent with goods prices decreasing by 0.9 percent and service prices rising by 3.7 percent; food prices were up by 1 .1percent while energy prices dropped significantly at -5 .percent
Real PCE’s minor increase of less than one-tenth reflected slight growths both in spending on goods and services: pharmaceutical products led nondurable goods while gambling topped recreational service contributions
Today’s release includes revisions stemming from annual updates made to National Economic Accounts beginning January2019 Updates incorporate first-quarter wage salary data from BLS Quarterly Census Employment Wages program along monthly revisions April-July2024 based revised monthly BLS Current Employment Statistics program Data reflecting these updates shown Table8
Updated quarterly annual estimates part third estimate GDP second quarter September26