by Calculated Risk on 10/30/2020 08:38:00 AM

The BEA released the Personal Income and Outlays report for September:

Personal income increased $170.3 billion (0.9 percent) in September according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $150.3 billion (0.9 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $201.4 billion (1.4 percent).

Real DPI increased 0.7 percent in September and Real PCE increased 1.2 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.2 percent (table 9). Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent.

The September PCE price index increased 1.4 percent year-over-year and the September PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 1.5 percent year-over-year.

The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through September 2020 (2012 dollars). Note that the y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the change.

Click on graph for larger image.

The dashed red lines are the quarterly levels for real PCE.

Personal income was higher than expected,  and the increase in PCE was above expectations.

Note the red line for Q3 (the quarterly level of PCE).   This is still 3.3% below the Q4 2019 level for PCE.