News Release
These data have been superseded. Please see our latest releases for current estimates and contact information.
Personal Income and Outlays, January 2014
Personal income increased $43.9 billion, or 0.3 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $45.2 billion, or 0.4 percent, in January, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $48.1 billion, or 0.4 percent. In December, personal income decreased $5.5 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, DPI decreased $9.7 billion, or 0.1 percent, and PCE increased $6.5 billion, or 0.1 percent, based on revised estimates. Real disposable personal income increased 0.3 percent in January, in contrast to a decrease of 0.2 percent in December. Real PCE increased 0.3 percent, in contrast to a decrease of 0.1 percent. 2013 2014 Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. (Percent change from preceding month) Personal income, current dollars 0.4 -0.1 0.3 0.0 0.3 Disposable personal income: Current dollars 0.5 -0.2 0.2 -0.1 0.4 Chained (2009) dollars 0.4 -0.2 0.1 -0.2 0.3 Personal consumption expenditures: Current dollars 0.3 0.2 0.5 0.1 0.4 Chained (2009) dollars 0.2 0.2 0.4 -0.1 0.3 BOX._____________ This news release presents revised estimates of wages and salaries, personal taxes, and contributions for government social insurance for July through September 2013 (third quarter). These estimates reflect the incorporation of newly available third-quarter wage and salary tabulations from the quarterly census of employment and wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. _________________ FOOTNOTE.________ Monthly estimates are expressed at seasonally adjusted annual rates, unless otherwise specified. Month-to-month dollar changes are differences between these published estimates. Month-to-month percent changes are calculated from unrounded data and are not annualized. Real estimates are in chained (2009) dollars. This news release is available on BEA's Web site at www.bea.gov/newsreleases/rels.htm. _________________ The change in the January estimate of personal income was affected by several special factors. Personal income in January was boosted by several provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which affected government social benefit payments to persons. In addition, personal income was boosted by cost-of-living adjustments to several federal transfer programs and by pay raises for civilian and military personnel. In contrast, the change in personal income in January was reduced by the expiration of Emergency Unemployment Compensation programs and by lump-sum social security benefit payments that had boosted December personal income. In summary, excluding all of these special factors, personal income increased $23.7 billion, or 0.2 percent, in January, in contrast to a decrease of $15.1 billion, or 0.1 percent, in December. These special factors are discussed more fully below. Wages and salaries Private wages and salaries increased $14.8 billion in January, in contrast to a decrease of $9.1 billion in December. Goods producing industries' payrolls increased $1.8 billion, compared with an increase of $1.7 billion; manufacturing payrolls decreased $0.4 billion, in contrast to an increase of $0.2 billion. Services-producing industries' payrolls increased $13.0 billion, in contrast to a decrease of $10.8 billion. Government wages and salaries increased $0.6 billion in January, compared with an increase of $1.3 billion in December. Pay raises for civilian and military personnel added $2.2 billion to government payrolls in January. Other personal income Employer contributions for employee pension and insurance funds increased $1.9 billion in January, compared with an increase of $2.0 billion in December. Employer contributions for government social insurance increased $2.7 billion in January, in contrast to a decrease of $0.6 billion in December. The January estimate reflected an increase in the social security taxable wage base (from $113,700 to $117,000), which added $1.7 billion to January. (Changes in employer contributions for government social insurance do not affect personal income because employer contributions for government social insurance are also included in total contributions for government social insurance, which is a subtraction in the calculation of personal income.) Proprietors' income increased $4.4 billion in January, in contrast to a decrease of $6.1 billion in December. Farm proprietors' income increased $0.6 billion, in contrast to a decrease of $12.6 billion. Nonfarm proprietors' income increased $3.8 billion, compared with an increase of $6.5 billion. Rental income of persons increased $5.6 billion in January, compared with an increase of $2.4 billion in December. Personal income receipts on assets (personal interest income plus personal dividend income) decreased $6.7 billion in January; personal income receipts on assets was unchanged in December. Personal current transfer receipts increased $29.8 billion in January, compared with an increase of $4.0 billion in December. The January estimates of current transfer receipts reflected several special factors. A 1.5-percent cost-of-living adjustment to social security benefits and to several other federal transfer payment programs added $14.2 billion to the January increase. Medicaid benefits were boosted $19.2 billion due to expanded coverage under the ACA. Other government social benefits to persons was boosted $14.7 billion, reflecting increases in several refundable tax credits, including health insurance premium subsidies paid in the form of tax credits to enrollees of the ACA exchanges. For additional information, see the FAQ on "How will the Affordable Care Act affect BEA’s measure of personal income and outlays?" at www.bea.gov. These increases in current transfer receipts were partly offset by the expiration of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program that reduced unemployment benefit payments $16.7 billion and by lump-sum social security benefit payments that had boosted December personal income $8.2 billion. Contributions for government social insurance -- a subtraction in calculating personal income -- increased $9.1 billion in January, in contrast to a decrease of $0.6 billion in December. The January estimate reflected increases in both employer and employee contributions for government social insurance. The January estimate of employee contributions for government social insurance reflected an increase in the social security taxable wage base, in the monthly premiums paid by participants in the supplementary medical insurance programs and other hospital insurance, and in contributions by the self-employed; together, these changes added $5.2 billion to January. Personal current taxes and disposable personal income Personal current taxes decreased $1.5 billion in January, in contrast to an increase of $4.3 billion in December. Disposable personal income (DPI) -- personal income less personal current taxes -- increased $45.2 billion, or 0.4 percent, in January, in contrast to a decrease of $9.7 billion, or 0.1 percent, in December. Personal outlays and personal saving Personal outlays -- PCE, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments -- increased $49.7 billion in January, compared with an increase of $4.5 billion in December. PCE increased $48.1 billion in January, compared with an increase of $6.5 billion in December. Personal saving -- DPI less personal outlays -- was $540.1 billion in January, compared with $544.5 billion in December. The personal saving rate -- personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income -- was 4.3 percent in January, the same rate as in December. For a comparison of personal saving in BEA's national income and product accounts with personal saving in the Federal Reserve Board's financial accounts of the United States and data on changes in net worth, go to www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/nipa-frb.asp. Real DPI, real PCE, and price index Real DPI -- DPI adjusted to remove price changes -- increased 0.3 percent in January, in contrast to a decrease of 0.2 percent in December. Real PCE -- PCE adjusted to remove price changes -- increased 0.3 percent in January, in contrast to a decrease of 0.1 percent in December. Purchases of durable goods decreased 0.2 percent, compared with a decrease of 2.2 percent. Purchases of nondurable goods decreased 0.7 percent, in contrast to an increase of 0.8 percent. Purchases of services increased 0.8 percent, in contrast to a decrease of 0.1 percent. Measures of health care services were boosted $29.0 billion to reflect the effect of the ACA on demand for these services. The preliminary monthly source data used to estimate health care services do not reflect the effects of the ACA. Information on Medicaid benefits, on ACA insurance exchange enrollments, and other related information was used to prepare the estimates of consumer spending on these services. The price index for PCE increased 0.1 percent in January, compared with an increase of 0.2 percent in December. The PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 0.1 percent in January, the same increase as in December. 2013 Personal Income and Outlays Personal income increased 2.8 percent in 2013 (that is, from the 2012 annual level to the 2013 annual level), compared with an increase of 4.2 percent in 2012. DPI increased 1.9 percent, compared with an increase of 3.9 percent. PCE increased 3.1 percent, compared with an increase of 4.1 percent. Real DPI increased 0.7 percent in 2013, compared with an increase of 2.0 percent in 2012. Real PCE increased 2.0 percent, compared with an increase of 2.2 percent. BOX._____________ This release includes revised estimates of population, per capita disposable personal income (DPI), and per capita real DPI. The revised population estimates reflect newly available estimates from the Census Bureau for March 2010 through December 2013. BEA population estimates are a mid-month average of Census Bureau data. The revised per capita estimates reflect the revisions to the population estimates. Estimates for the complete revision period are available on BEA's Web site at www.bea.gov/iTable/index_nipa.cfm. _________________ Revisions Estimates of personal income and DPI have been revised for July through December; estimates for PCE have been revised for October through December. Changes in personal income, in current-dollar and chained (2009) dollar DPI, and in current-dollar and chained (2009) dollar PCE for November and December -- revised and as published in last month's release -- are shown below. Estimates of wages and salaries were revised from July through December. The revision to third-quarter wages and salaries reflected the incorporation of the most recently available BLS tabulations of the third-quarter wages and salaries from the quarterly census of employment and wages. Revised estimates for October, November, and December reflect extrapolations from the revised third-quarter level of wages. In addition, revisions to November and December reflect revised BLS employment, hours, and earnings. Estimates of PCE were revised from October through December. The revisions reflected the incorporation of revised Census retail sales data. Change from preceding month November December Previous Revised Previous Revised Previous Revised Previous Revised (Billions of dollars) (percent) (Billions of dollars) (percent) Personal income: Current dollars 29.8 37.4 0.2 0.3 2.3 -5.5 0.0 0.0 Disposable personal income: Current dollars 14.4 21.1 0.1 0.2 -3.8 -9.7 0.0 -0.1 Chained (2009) dollars 11.5 11.4 0.1 0.1 -27.5 -28.6 -0.2 -0.2 Personal consumption expenditures: Current dollars 74.8 56.8 0.6 0.5 44.1 6.5 0.4 0.1 Chained (2009) dollars 67.8 45.3 0.6 0.4 18.7 -12.1 0.2 -0.1 BEA's national, international, regional, and industry estimates; the Survey of Current Business; and BEA news releases are available without charge on BEA's Web site at www.bea.gov.By visiting the site, you can also subscribe to free e-mail summaries of BEA releases and announcements. * * * Next release -- March 28, 2014 at 8:30 A.M. EDT for Personal Income and Outlays for February