by Calculated Risk on 2/28/2020 08:35:00 AM

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

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.

The January PCE price index increased 1.7 percent year-over-year and the January PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 1.6 percent year-over-year.

The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through January 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.

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

Note that core PCE inflation was below expectations.