by Calculated Risk on 4/28/2023 08:40:00 AM

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

Personal income increased $67.9 billion (0.3 percent) in March, according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $71.7 billion (0.4 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $8.2 billion (less than 0.1 percent).

The PCE price index increased 0.1 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.3 percent. Real DPI increased 0.3 percent in March and Real PCE decreased less than 0.1 percent; goods decreased 0.4 percent and services increased 0.1 percent.
emphasis added

The March PCE price index increased 4.2 percent year-over-year (YoY), down from 5.1 percent YoY in February, and down from the recent peak of 7.0 percent in June 2022.

The PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 4.6 percent YoY, down from 4.7 percent in February, and down from the recent peak of 5.4 percent in February 2022.

The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through March 2023 (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 and PCE were slightly above expectations.

Inflation was close to expectations.