by Calculated Risk on 1/29/2018 08:47:00 AM

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

Personal income increased $58.7 billion (0.4 percent) in December according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $48.0 billion (0.3 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $54.2 billion (0.4 percent).
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Real PCE increased 0.3 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.1 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent.

The December PCE price index increased 1.7 percent year-over-year and the December PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 1.5 percent year-over-year.

The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through December 2017 (2009 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.

The increase in personal income was slightly above expectations,  and the increase in PCE was slightly below expectations.