PERSONAL INCOME AND OUTLAYS, DECEMBER 2017 


Personal income increased $58.7 billion (0.4 percent) in December according to estimates released today
by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $48.0 billion (0.3 percent)
and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $54.2 billion (0.4 percent).

Real DPI increased 0.2 percent in December and Real PCE increased 0.3 percent. The PCE price index
increased 0.1 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent.

                                                                2017
                                                Aug.    Sept.    Oct.    Nov.    Dec.
                                                Percent change from preceding month
Personal income:
 Current dollars                                0.2      0.5     0.4     0.3     0.4
Disposable personal income:
 Current dollars                                0.1      0.4     0.3     0.3     0.3
 Chained (2009) dollars                        -0.1      0.0     0.2     0.0     0.2
Personal consumption expenditures (PCE):
 Current dollars                                0.2      1.0     0.3     0.8     0.4
 Chained (2009) dollars                         0.0      0.6     0.1     0.5     0.3
Price indexes:
 PCE                                            0.2      0.4     0.1     0.2     0.1
 PCE, excluding food and energy                 0.1      0.2     0.2     0.1     0.2

Price indexes:                                  Percent change from month one year ago
 PCE                                            1.4      1.7     1.6     1.8     1.7
 PCE, excluding food and energy                 1.3      1.4     1.4     1.5     1.5

The increase in personal income in December primarily reflected increases in wages and salaries and
personal interest income (table 3).

The $34.4 billion increase in real PCE in December reflected an increase of $11.1 billion in spending for
goods and a $23.2 billion increase in spending for services (table 7). Within goods, new motor vehicles was
the leading contributor to the increase. Within services, the largest contributor to the increase was spending
for electricity and gas. Detailed information on monthly real PCE spending can be found in Table 2.4.6U.

Personal outlays increased $61.5 billion in December (table 3). Personal saving was $351.6 billion in December
and the personal saving rate, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 2.4 percent (table 1).

                                2017 Personal Income and Outlays

Personal income (table 6) increased 3.1 percent in 2017 (that is, from the 2016 annual level to the 2017
annual level), compared with an increase of 2.4 percent in 2016. DPI increased 2.9 percent in 2017 compared
with an increase of 2.6 percent in 2016. In 2017, PCE increased 4.5 percent, compared with an increase of
4.0 percent in 2016.

Real DPI increased 1.2 percent in 2017, compared with an increase of 1.4 percent in 2016. Real PCE (table 8)
increased 2.7 percent, the same increase as in 2016.

                                Updates to Personal Income and Outlays

Estimates have been updated for October and November. The percent change from the preceding month for
current-dollar personal income, and for current-dollar and chained (2009) dollar DPI and PCE  -- revised and
as published in last month's release -- are shown below.

                                                        Change from preceding month
                                                October                                   November
                                Previous   Revised   Previous   Revised   Previous   Revised   Previous   Revised
                               (Billions of dollars)      (Percent)      (Billions of dollars)      (Percent)
Personal income:
 Current dollars                    59.5      61.9        0.4       0.4       54.0      50.4        0.3       0.3
Disposable personal income:
 Current dollars                    60.9      48.7        0.4       0.3       50.9      37.6        0.4       0.3
 Chained (2009) dollars             35.1      24.1        0.3       0.2       15.2       2.6        0.1       0.0
Personal consumption expenditures:
 Current dollars                    23.2      35.5        0.2       0.3       87.1     101.9        0.6       0.8
 Chained (2009) dollars              3.0      13.7        0.0       0.1       49.1      61.1        0.4       0.5

                                Next release:  March 1, 2018 at 8:30 A.M. EST
                                 Personal Income and Outlays:  January 2018

                                       Additional Information

Resources

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•   For more on BEA's statistics, see our monthly online journal, the Survey of Current Business.
•   BEA's news release schedule
•   NIPA Handbook:  Concepts and Methods of the U.S. National Income and Product Accounts


Definitions

Personal income is the income received by, or on behalf of, all persons from all sources:  from
participation as laborers in production, from owning a home or business, from the ownership of
financial assets, and from government and business in the form of transfers. It includes income from
domestic sources as well as the rest of world. It does not include realized or unrealized capital gains or
losses.

Disposable personal income is the income available to persons for spending or saving. It is equal to
personal income less personal current taxes.

Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) is the value of the goods and services purchased by, or on the
behalf of, 'persons' who reside in the United States.

Personal outlays is the sum of PCE, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments.

Personal saving is personal income less personal outlays and personal current taxes.

The personal saving rate is personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income.

Current-dollar estimates are valued in the prices of the period when the transactions occurred-that is,
at 'market value.' Also referred to as 'nominal estimates' or as 'current-price estimates.'

Real values are inflation-adjusted estimates-that is, estimates that exclude the effects of price changes.

For more definitions, see the Glossary: National Income and Product Accounts.


Statistical conventions

Annual rates. Monthly and quarterly values are expressed at seasonally-adjusted annual rates (SAAR).
Dollar changes are calculated as the difference between these SAAR values. For detail, see the FAQ
'Why does BEA publish estimates at annual rates?'

Month-to-month percent changes are calculated from unrounded data and are not annualized.

Quarter-to-quarter percent changes are calculated from unrounded data and are displayed at annual
rates. For detail, see the FAQ 'How is average annual growth calculated?< /a>'

Quantities and prices. Quantities, or 'real' volume measures, and prices are expressed as index
numbers with a specified reference year equal to 100 (currently 2009). Quantity and price indexes are
calculated using a Fisher-chained weighted formula that incorporates weights from two adjacent
periods (quarters for quarterly data and annuals for annual data). 'Real' dollar series are calculated by
multiplying the published quantity index by the current dollar value in the reference year (2009) and
then dividing by 100. Percent changes calculated from real quantity indexes and chained-dollar levels
are conceptually the same; any differences are due to rounding.

Chained-dollar values are not additive because the relative weights for a given period differ from those
of the reference year.