Personal Income Up 0.1%, Spending Up 0.6%: What's The Problem?

Personal Income is up 0.1%, spending is up 0.6%. Real Disposable Income is up 0.1%, real spending is up 0.4%.

The BEA's Personal Income and Outlays report for July 2019 shows consumers keep spending well beyond income increases.

• 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.

Compensation

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.

Increased Spending

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.

Auto and SUV sales have not been strong.

I smell revisions.