Personal Income and Outlays, October 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 $84.9 billion (0.5 percent) in October according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $81.7 billion (0.5 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $86.9 billion (0.6 percent).

Real DPI increased 0.3 percent in October and Real PCE increased 0.4 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.2 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.1 percent.

The increase in personal income in October primarily reflected increases in wages and salaries, proprietors' income, and government social benefits to persons (table 3). Farm proprietors' income increased $11.6 billion in October, which included subsidy payments associated with the Department of Agriculture's Market Facilitation Program.

The $56.5 billion increase in real PCE in October reflected an increase of $14.3 billion in spending for goods and a $41.4 billion increase in spending for services (table 7). Within goods, spending for prescription drugs was the leading contributor to the increase. Within services, the largest contributor to the increase was spending for household electricity and gas. Detailed information on monthly real PCE spending can be found in Table 2.3.6U.

Personal outlays increased $90.8 billion in October (table 3). Personal saving was $967.8 billion in October and the personal saving rate , personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 6.2 percent (table 1).

Updates to Personal Income and Outlays

Estimates have been updated for April through September. The percent change from the preceding month for current-dollar personal income, and for current-dollar and chained (2012) dollar DPI and

PCE -- revised and previously published in last month's release -- are shown below.

QCEW Data Included in the Second Quarter of 2018

This news release includes revised estimates of wages and salaries, personal taxes, and contributions for government social insurance for April through June 2018 (second quarter). These estimates reflect the incorporation of newly available second-quarter wage and salary tabulations from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program.