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Personal Current Transfer Receipts Definition

Q: What are Personal Current Transfer Receipts?

A: The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) explains PCTR consists of income payments to persons for which no current services are performed. It is the sum of government social benefits and net current transfer receipts from business.

Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), housing subsidies, and Social Security are examples.

Personal Current Transfer Receipts Detail

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Personal Current Transfer Receipts Detail Amounts

• Total PCTR: 4.99 trillion
• Social Security: 1.58 trillion
• Medicare: 1.24 trillion
• Medicaid: 1.02 trillion
• Veteran’s Benefits: 299 billion

Those numbers are seasonally adjusted annualized. The total of SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and Veteran’s Benefits is 4.14 trillion.

SNAP (food stamps) are about $100 billion annually. Monthly figures not available to download with the rest.

PCTR as Percent of Total Income

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PCTR as s percent of income tends to spike in recessions but not recover to the prior low.

PCTR as Percent of Total Income Detail

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Percent of Income Discussion

• In 1959, PCTR was 3.7 percent of income. It’s now 19 percent.
• Between January 2017 and February 2020 PCTR as a percent of income fell from 17.4 percent to 16.9 percent.
• The post-Covid low was 17.7 percent in December of 2023.
• Since December of 2023 PCTR as a percent of income has risen to 19.0 percent.

Given the ongoing wave of baby boomer retirements, increasing reliance on PCTR over time is a given.

Benefits are $5 trillion and rising.

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