– by New Deal democrat Personal income and consumption is one of the two big monthly reports on the state of the average American, in addition to the jobs report. This month it has the added virtue of being the “least stale” monthly report, as it was issued only five weeks later than scheduled. Ever since […]

 – by New Deal democrat In my conclusion last month, I wrote “In the first two months of Q2, total real spending has declined by -0.8%, while services has been basically unchanged. If there is a further decline in June, based on the above discussion that would likely trigger a “recession watch” signal.” To cut to […]

 – by New Deal democrat The last significant data for the first half of 2025, personal income and spending for May, was released this morning. It was the first month that reflected the impact of Tariff-palooza!, and boy howdy was it impacted. Not a single metric was positive. One metric was unchanged; everything else was negative. […]

 – by New Deal democrat Aside from the long leading indicators I discussed in that post, GDP is a look in the rear view mirror, because it includes January and February. Personal income and spending for March, although it is part of that GDP report, is therefore more current. Like the housing data we got earlier […]

Personal income and spending for December: more “steady as she goes” but with late cycle characteristics -by New Deal Democrat The December personal income and spending report showed that for the huge consumption sector of the economy, “steady as she goes” continued, as both nominal and real personal income and spending rose again in December. […]

 – by New Deal democrat Adjusted for inflation, both personal income and spending came in positive once again in November. But under the hood, the report looked a little tepid, and while it certainly wasn’t recessionary, the data was consistent with what I would expect later in the cycle of an expansion. For the record, real […]

Personal income, spending, and prices: consumer remains strong, inflation close to 2% target no matter how you measure it  – by New Deal democrat I am on the road today, so I will have to keep this brief. In June nominal personal income rose 0.3%, and spending rose 0.2%. Since PCE inflation rose less than […]

 – by New Deal democrat Personal income and spending have become one of the two most important monthly reports I follow. This is in large part because the big question this year is whether the contractionary effects of Fed tightening have just been delayed until this year, or whether the fact that there have been […]

Strong personal income and spending contrast with near record low in saving  – by New Deal democrat Like retail sales earlier in November, personal income and spending both rose smartly, as shown in the below graph of real retail sales compared with real personal spending: Real personal income was up 0.4%, and real personal spending increased […]

Real personal income and spending decline in May, while the saving rate increases (not good!) In May nominal personal income rose 0.5%, and spending rose 0.2%. But since the personal consumption deflator, i.e., the relevant measure of inflation, rose 0.6%, real income fell -0.1%, and real personal spending fell -0.4%. While both real income and spending […]