August Personal Income

The BEA has just released its estimate of personal income in August. The headline figure is that there was a 0.4% increase in personal income during the month, which is roughly in line with economists expectations.

But month-to-month reports like this are notoriously volatile, so I think that year-on-year comparisons are much more informative. The graph below is an update of last month’s graph of personal income and savings, including the new August data.

Income growth has decidedly slowed. And savings are scraping record-bottom levels. Unfortunately, as I’ve said before, that leaves little room for consumption growth any time soon.

Kash