News Release

EMBARGOED UNTIL RELEASE AT 8:30 A.M. EDT, Friday, August 30, 2019
BEA 19-42

Personal Income and Outlays, July 2019

Personal income increased $23.9 billion (0.1 percent) in July according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $44.4 billion (0.3 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $93.1 billion (0.6 percent).

Real DPI increased 0.1 percent in July and Real PCE increased 0.4 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.2 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent.

  2019
Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul.
Percent change from preceding month
Personal income:  
     Current dollars 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.5 0.1
Disposable personal income:  
     Current dollars 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.4 0.3
     Chained (2012) dollars 0.2 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.1
Personal consumption expenditures (PCE):  
     Current dollars 1.0 0.7 0.5 0.3 0.6
     Chained (2012) dollars 0.8 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.4
Price indexes:  
     PCE 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.1 0.2
     PCE, excluding food and energy 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.2 0.2
Price indexes: Percent change from month one year ago
     PCE 1.4 1.5 1.4 1.3 1.4
     PCE, excluding food and energy 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.6 1.6

The increase in personal income in July primarily reflected increases in compensation of employees and government social benefits to persons that were partially offset by a decrease in personal interest income (table 3).

The $56.9 billion increase in real PCE in July reflected an increase of $36.4 billion in spending for goods and a $23.8 billion increase in spending for services (table 7). Within goods, recreational goods and vehicles was the leading contributor to the increase. Within services, the largest contributor to the increase was spending for household electricity and gas. Detailed information on monthly real PCE spending can be found in Table 2.3.6U.

Personal outlays increased $96.4 billion in July (table 3). Personal saving was $1.27 trillion in July and the personal saving rate, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 7.7 percent (table 1).

Updates to Personal Income and Outlays

Estimates have been updated for January through June. 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 as published in last month's release -- are shown below.

  Change from preceding month
May June
Previous Revised Previous Revised Previous Revised Previous Revised
(Billions of dollars) (Percent) (Billions of dollars) (Percent)
Personal income:  
     Current dollars 69.9 68.3 0.4 0.4 83.6 83.8 0.4 0.5
Disposable personal income:  
     Current dollars 55.8 51.4 0.3 0.3 69.7 69.7 0.4 0.4
     Chained (2012) dollars 31.2 32.2 0.2 0.2 45.5 45.9 0.3 0.3
Personal consumption expenditures:  
     Current dollars 67.7 69.5 0.5 0.5 41.0 50.3 0.3 0.3
     Chained (2012) dollars 44.4 50.5 0.3 0.4 21.4 30.2 0.2 0.2
QCEW Data Included in the First Quarter of 2019

This news release includes revised estimates of wages and salaries, personal taxes, and contributions for government social insurance for January through March 2019 (first quarter). These estimates reflect the incorporation of the most recently available first-quarter wage and salary tabulations from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program.

Next release:  September 27, 2019 at 8:30 A.M. EDT
Personal Income and Outlays:  August 2019