Personal Income and Outlays, January 2020

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 $116.5 billion (0.6 percent) in January according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $101.4 billion (0.6 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $29.6 billion (0.2 percent).

Real DPI increased 0.5 percent in January and Real PCE increased 0.1 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.1 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.1 percent.

This release includes revised estimates of wages and salaries, personal taxes, and contributions for government social insurance for July through September 2019 (third quarter). These estimates reflect the incorporation of new third-quarter data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

The increase in personal income in January primarily reflected increases in compensation of employees and social security benefit payments (related to annual cost of living adjustments), and other government social benefits to persons, which includes the Affordable Care Act refundable tax credit (table 3).

The $12.9 billion increase in real PCE in January reflected increases of $2.2 billion in spending for goods and $10.3 billion in spending for services (table 7). Within goods, new motor vehicles was the leading contributor to the increase. Within services, the largest contributor to the increase was spending for food services and accommodations. Detailed information on monthly real PCE spending can be found on Table 2.3.6U.

Personal outlays increased $27.0 billion in January (table 3). Personal saving was $1.33 trillion in January, and the personal saving rate, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 7.9 percent (table 1).

Updates

Estimates have been updated for July through December 2019. Revised and previously published changes from the preceding month for current-dollar personal income, and for current-dollar and chained (2012) dollar DPI and PCE, are shown below.