Personal Income increased 0.1% in March, Spending increased 0.9%

The BEA released the Personal Income and Outlays report for March:

Personal income increased $11.4 billion (0.1 percent) in March according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $0.6 billion, (less than 0.1 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $123.5 billion (0.9 percent).

Real DPI decreased 0.2 percent in March, and real PCE increased 0.7 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.2 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased less than 0.1 percent.

The March PCE price index increased 1.5 percent year-over-year and the March PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 1.6 percent year-over-year.

The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through September 2018 (2012 dollars). Note that the y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the change.

Click on graph for larger image.

The dashed red lines are the quarterly levels for real PCE.

The increase in personal income was below expectations, and the increase in PCE was above expectations.

PCE growth was weak in Q1, and inflation is below the Fed's target.

from Calculated Risk http://bit.ly/2WcG2Ed
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