by Calculated Risk on 4/30/2020 09:24:00 AM

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

Personal income decreased $382.1 billion (2.0 percent) in March according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $334.6 billion (2.0 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased $1,127.3 billion (7.5 percent).

Real DPI decreased 1.7 percent in March and Real PCE decreased 7.3 percent. The PCE price index decreased 0.3 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index decreased 0.1 percent.

The March PCE price index increased 1.3 percent year-over-year and the March PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 1.7 percent year-over-year.

The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through March 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 change in personal income and the change in PCE were below expectations.

PCE collapsed in March, and will collapse further in April.