Personal Income and Outlays, May 2018

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 $60.0 billion (0.4 percent) in May according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $63.2 billion (0.4 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $27.8 billion (0.2 percent). Real DPI increased 0.2 percent in May and Real PCE decreased less than 0.1 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.2 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent.

The increase in personal income in May primarily reflected increases in wages and salaries, personal dividend income, and nonfarm proprietors’ income (table 3). The $1.4 billion decrease in real PCE in May reflected a decrease in spending for services that was partially offset by an increase in spending for goods (table 7). Within goods, recreational goods and vehicles was the leading contributor to the increase. Within services, the largest contributor to the decrease was spending for household utilities. Detailed information on monthly real PCE spending can be found in Table 2.3.6U. Personal outlays increased $29.2 billion in May (table 3). Personal saving was $482.0 billion in May 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 January through April. 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.

Upcoming Annual Update of the National Income and Product Accounts BEA will release the results of the 15th comprehensive (or benchmark) update of the national income and product accounts (NIPAs) in conjunction with the second quarter 2018 "advance" estimate on July 27, 2018. For more information, see the Technical Note. Details on the planned statistical, definitional, and presentational changes are available in the April Survey of Current Business article "Preview of the 2018 Comprehensive Update of the National Income and Product Accounts." An article in the September Survey will describe the estimates in detail. Revised NIPA table stubs are available on the BEA Web site. ____________________________________________________________ Next release: July 31, 2018 at 8:30 A.M. EDT Personal Income and Outlays: June 2018