by Calculated Risk on 5/31/2018 08:39:00 AM

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

Personal income increased $49.5 billion (0.3 percent) in April according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $60.9 billion (0.4 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $79.8 billion (0.6 percent).

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

The April PCE price index increased 2.0 percent year-over-year and the April PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 1.8 percent year-over-year.

The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through April 2018 (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 at expectations,  and the increase in PCE was above expectations.