Personal Income and Outlays, April 2019

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 $92.8 billion (0.5 percent) in April according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $69.3 billion (0.4 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $40.8 billion (0.3 percent).

Real DPI increased 0.1 percent in April and Real PCE decreased less than 0.1 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.3 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent.

The increase in personal income in April primarily reflected increases in personal interest income, wages and salaries, and government social benefits to persons.

The $3.7 billion decrease in real PCE in April reflected a decrease of $5.4 billion in spending for services that was partly offset by a $2.4 billion increase in spending for goods (table 7). Within services, the largest contributor to the decrease was spending for household electricity and gas. Within goods, spending for gasoline and other energy goods was the leading contributor to the increase. Detailed information on monthly real PCE spending can be found in Table 2.3.6U.

Personal outlays increased $42.7 billion in April (table 3). Personal saving was $990.3 billion in April 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 October through March. 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.

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