News Release

EMBARGOED UNTIL RELEASE AT 8:30 A.M. EST, Friday, January 31, 2020
BEA 20-05

Personal Income and Outlays, December 2019

Personal income increased $40.7 billion (0.2 percent) in December according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $30.6 billion (0.2 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $46.6 billion (0.3 percent) (table 5).

Real DPI decreased 0.1 percent in December and Real PCE increased 0.1 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.3 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent (table 9).

  2019
Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.
Percent change from preceding month
Personal income:  
     Current dollars 0.5 0.3 0.1 0.4 0.2
Disposable personal income:  
     Current dollars 0.6 0.4 0.0 0.4 0.2
     Chained (2012) dollars 0.6 0.4 -0.2 0.3 -0.1
Personal consumption expenditures (PCE):  
     Current dollars 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.3
     Chained (2012) dollars 0.2 0.2 0.0 0.3 0.1
Price indexes:  
     PCE 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.1 0.3
     PCE, excluding food and energy 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2
Price indexes: Percent change from month one year ago
     PCE 1.4 1.3 1.4 1.4 1.6
     PCE, excluding food and energy 1.8 1.7 1.6 1.5 1.6

The increase in personal income in December primarily reflected increases in compensation of employees and personal interest income that were partially offset by a decrease in farm proprietors’ income (table 3). Farm proprietors’ income decreased $36.2 billion in December, which included a decrease in subsidy payments associated with the Department of Agriculture’s Market Facilitation Program.

The $6.8 billion increase in real PCE in December reflected an increase of $2.5 billion in spending on goods and a $4.4 billion increase in spending on services (table 7). Within goods, spending on prescription drugs was the leading contributor to the increase. Within services, the largest contributor to the increase was spending on health care. Detailed information on monthly real PCE spending can be found on Table 2.3.6U.

Personal outlays increased $51.5 billion in December (table 3). Personal saving was $1.28 trillion in December and the personal saving rate, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 7.6 percent (table 1).

Updates to Personal Income and Outlays

Estimates have been updated for October and November. Revised and previously published changes from the preceding month for current-dollar personal income, and for current-dollar and chained (2012) dollar DPI and PCE, are shown below.

  Change from preceding month
October November
Previous Revised Previous Revised Previous Revised Previous Revised
(Billions of dollars) (Percent) (Billions of dollars) (Percent)
Personal income:  
     Current dollars 23.1 11.1 0.1 0.1 101.7 84.1 0.5 0.4
Disposable personal income:  
     Current dollars 5.9 -3.3 0.0 0.0 87.7 70.0 0.5 0.4
     Chained (2012) dollars -30.9 -36.4 -0.2 -0.2 55.8 47.8 0.4 0.3
Personal consumption expenditures:  
     Current dollars 51.3 32.9 0.3 0.2 64.9 65.3 0.4 0.4
     Chained (2012) dollars 14.5 0.3 0.1 0.0 37.8 45.3 0.3 0.3

Next release: February 28, 2020 at 8:30 A.M. EST
Personal Income and Outlays: January 2020