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EMBARGOED UNTIL RELEASE AT 8:30 A.M. EDT, Thursday, April 30, 2020

BEA 20—20

Personal Income and Outlays: March 2020

Personal income decreased $382.1 billion (2.0 percent) in March according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (tables 3 and 5). Disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $334.6 billion (2.0 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased $1,127.3 billion (7.5 percent).

Real DPI decreased 1.7 percent in March and Real PCE decreased 7.3 percent (tables 5 and 7). The PCE price index decreased 0.3 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index decreased 0.1 percent (table 9).

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Impact on March 2020 Personal Income and Outlays

The decline in March personal income and outlays was, in part, due to the response to the spread of COVID-19, as governments issued “stay-at-home” orders. This led to rapid changes in demand, as businesses and schools switched to remote work or canceled operations, and consumers canceled, restricted, or redirected their spending. The full economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be quantified in the Personal Income and Outlays estimate for March 2020 because the impacts are generally embedded in source data and cannot be separately identified. For more information, see the Advance first-quarter 2020 GDP Technical Note. For additional information on the monthly assumptions for personal consumption expenditures, see the Key Source Data Table.

	2019		2020
	Nov.	Dec.	Jan.	Feb.	Mar.
	Percent change from preceding month
Personal income:
Current dollars	0.5	0.2	0.5	0.6	-2.0
Disposable personal income:
Current dollars	0.4	0.2	0.5	0.5	-2.0
Chained (2012) dollars	0.4	-0.1	0.4	0.4	-1.7
Personal consumption expenditures (PCE):
Current dollars	0.3	0.4	0.4	0.2	-7.5
Chained (2012) dollars	0.2	0.1	0.3	0.1	-7.3
Price indexes:
PCE	0.1	0.3	0.2	0.1	-0.3
PCE, excluding food and energy	0.1	0.2	0.2	0.2	-0.1
Price indexes:	Percent change from month one year ago
PCE	1.3	1.6	1.8	1.8	1.3
PCE, excluding food and energy	1.5	1.6	1.7	1.8	1.7

The decrease in personal income in March primarily reflected a decrease in compensation (table 3). The estimate of private wages and salaries was primarily based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly Current Employment Statistics report as well as unemployment insurance claims data from the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. For more information, see “How did BEA adjust March 2020 wages and salaries to account for the effects of COVID-19?”.

The decrease in real PCE in March reflected a decrease of $829.9 billion in spending for services and a $104.9 billion in spending for goods (table 7). Within services, the leading contributor to the decrease was spending on health care, including physician, dental, and paramedical services. Other contributors to the decrease in services were spending on food services and accommodations as well as recreation services. Within goods, the leading contributor to the decrease was spending on motor vehicles and parts. Partially offsetting the decreases in many categories of spending on goods was an increase in spending for food and beverages purchased for off-premises consumption. Detailed information on monthly real PCE spending can be found on Table 2.3.6U.

Personal outlays decreased $1.16 trillion in March (table 3). Personal saving was $2.17 trillion in March and the personal saving rate, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 13.1 percent (table 1).

Upcoming Annual Update of the National Income and Product Accounts

BEA will release results from the 2020 annual update of the National Income and Product Accounts on July 30, 2020, in conjunction with the advance estimate of GDP for the second quarter of 2020. For more information, see the GDP Technical Note.

Updates to Personal Income and Outlays

Estimates have been updated for January and February. 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
	January				February
	Previous	Revised	Previous	Revised	Previous	Revised	Previous	Revised
	(Billions of dollars)		(Percent)		(Billions of dollars)		(Percent)
Personal income:
Current dollars	115.8	101.3	0.6	0.5	106.8	104.6	0.6	0.6
Disposable personal income:
Current dollars	98.8	88.6	0.6	0.5	88.7	87.9	0.5	0.5
Chained (2012) dollars	68.1	56.5	0.5	0.4	66.6	66.5	0.4	0.4
Personal consumption expenditures:
Current dollars	34.0	66.5	0.2	0.4	27.7	26.8	0.2	0.2
Chained (2012) dollars	11.9	39.2	0.1	0.3	13.0	12.8	0.1	0.1

Next release: May 29, 2020 at 8:30 A.M. EDT
Personal Income and Outlays: April 2020

Full Release & Tables (PDF)

Tables Only (Excel)

Release Highlights (PDF)

Historical Comparison (PDF)

Personal Income

Marissa Crawford

(301) 278-9729

piniwd@bea.gov

PCE Goods

Kyle Brown

301-278-9086

pce@bea.gov

PCE Services

Jeff Barnett

301-278-9663

pce@bea.gov

News Media

Jeannine Aversa

(301) 278-9003

Jeannine.Aversa@bea.gov

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NIPA Handbook: Concepts and Methods of the U.S. National Income and Product Accounts

Definitions

Personal income is the income received by, or on behalf of, all persons from all sources: from participation as laborers in production, from owning a home or business, from the ownership of financial assets, and from government and business in the form of transfers. It includes income from domestic sources as well as the rest of world. It does not include realized or unrealized capital gains or losses.

Disposable personal income e is the income available to persons for spending or saving. It is equal to personal income less personal current taxes.

Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) is the value of the goods and services purchased by, or on the behalf of, “persons” who reside in the United States.

Personal outlays is the sum of PCE, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments.

Personal saving is personal income less personal outlays and personal current taxes.

The personal saving rate is personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income.

Current-dollar estimates are valued in the prices of the period when the transactions occurred—that is, at “market value.” Also referred to as “nominal estimates” or as “current-price estimates.”

Real values are inflation-adjusted estimates—that is, estimates that exclude the effects of price changes.

For more definitions, see the Glossary: National Income and Product Accounts.

Statistical conventions

Annual rates. Monthly and quarterly values are expressed at seasonally-adjusted annual rates (SAAR). Dollar changes are calculated as the difference between these SAAR values. For detail, see the FAQ “Why does BEA publish estimates at annual rates?”

Calendar years and quarters. Unless noted otherwise, annual data are presented on a calendar-year basis (i.e., covering January through December). Quarterly data are presented on a calendar-quarter basis (i.e., Q1 = January, February, March; Q2 = April, May, June; Q3 = July, August, September; Q4 = October, November, December).

Month-to-month percent changes are calculated from unrounded data and are not annualized.

Quarter-to-quarter percent changes are calculated from unrounded data and are displayed at annual rates. For detail, see the FAQ “How is average annual growth calculated?”

Quantities and prices. Quantities, or “real” volume measures, and prices are expressed as index numbers with a specified reference year equal to 100 (currently 2012). Quantity and price indexes are calculated using a Fisherchained weighted formula that incorporates weights from two adjacent periods (months for monthly data, quarters for quarterly data and annuals for annual data). For details on the calculation of quantity and price indexes, see Chapter 4: Estimating Methods in the NIPA Handbook.

Chained-dollar values are calculated by multiplying the quantity index by the current dollar value in the reference year (2012) and then dividing by 100. Percent changes calculated from real quantity indexes and chained-dollar levels are conceptually the same; any differences are due to rounding. Chained-dollar values are not additive because the relative weights for a given period differ from those of the reference year. In tables that display chaineddollar values, a "residual" line shows the difference between the sum of detailed chained-dollar series and its corresponding aggregate.

List of Personal Income and Outlays News Release Tables

Table 1. Personal Income and Its Disposition (Months)

Table 2. Personal Income and Its Disposition (Years and Quarters)

Table 3. Personal Income and Its Disposition, Change from Preceding Period (Months)

Table 4. Personal Income and Its Disposition, Change from Preceding Period (Years and Quarters)

Table 5. Personal Income and Its Disposition, Percent Change from Preceding Period (Months)

Table 6. Personal Income and Its Disposition, Percent Change from Preceding Period (Years and Quarters)

Table 7. Real Personal Consumption Expenditures by Major Type of Product (Months)

Table 8. Real Personal Consumption Expenditures by Major Type of Product (Years and Quarters)

Table 9. Price Indexes for Personal Consumption Expenditures: Level and Percent Change from Preceding Period (Months)

Table 10. Real Disposable Personal Income and Real Personal Consumption Expenditures: Percent Change from Month One Year Ago

Table 11. Price Indexes for Personal Consumption Expenditures: Percent Change from Month One Year Ago