Personal Income and Outlays, October 2017

Historical release narrative reproduced from the official public-domain U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis source. Statistical tables, charts, standard technical appendices and administrative material are omitted; formatting is adapted for reading. Figures retain the release's original vintage and may have been revised. Consult the linked source for the complete release and current data.

Personal income increased $65.1 billion (0.4 percent) in October according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $66.1 billion (0.5 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $34.4 billion (0.3 percent).

Real DPI increased 0.3 percent in October and Real PCE increased 0.1 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.1 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent.

The increase in personal income in October primarily reflected increases in wages and salaries and personal interest income (table 3).

The $13.1 billion increase in real PCE in October reflected an increase of $11.4 billion in spending for goods and a $2.7 billion increase in spending for services (table 7). Within goods, other nondurable goods, which includes prescription drugs and recreational items, was the leading contributor to the increase. Within services, the largest contributor to the increase was spending for other services, which includes passenger fares for foreign travel and communication services. Detailed information on monthly real PCE spending can be found in Table 2.3.6U.

Personal outlays increased $38.7 billion in October (table 3). Personal saving was $457.3 billion in October and the personal saving rate, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 3.2 percent (table 1).

Updates to Personal Income and Outlays

Estimates have been revised for April through September. The percent change from the preceding month for current-dollar personal income, and for current-dollar and chained (2009) dollar DPI and PCE -- revised and as published in last month's release -- are shown below.

QCEW Data Included in the Second Quarter of 2017

This news release includes revised estimates of wages and salaries, personal taxes, and contributions for government social insurance for April through June 2017 (second quarter). These estimates reflect the incorporation of the most recently available second-quarter wage and salary tabulations from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program.

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma

The August and September estimates of personal income and outlays reflect the effects of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. BEA cannot separately quantify the total impact of the storms on personal income and outlays because most of the source data used to estimate the components of personal income and outlays do not separately identify storm impacts. BEA made adjustments to estimates where source data were not yet available or did not fully reflect the effects of the storms.