October 31, 2024
Personal consumption expenditures rose 0.5% in September after gaining 0.3% in August and 0.6% in July. In the past year nominal spending has risen 5.3%.
What we are really interested in is “real” or inflation-adjusted spending. That is what goes into the GDP calculation. After adjusting for inflation real consumption spending rose 0.4% in September after climbing 0,2% in August and 0.4% in July. In the past year real spending has risen 3.1%. In the past three months that pace has climbed at a 3.8% pace. Thus, the consumer’s willingness to spend remains solid.
Personal income rose 0.3% in September after gaining 0.2% in August and 0.3% in July The growth in income is being fueled by growth in wages which climbed 0.5% in August and September after rising 0.4% in July. In the past year wages have risen 6.4%.
Real disposable income — what is left after paying taxes and adjusted for inflation — rose 0.1% in July, August, and September. In the past year it has risen by 3.1%.
The savings rate fell 0.4% in September to 4.6% after declining 0.1%% in August. Consumers are saving less of their paycheck each month than what they have done historically. In the 10-years prior to the 2020 recession the savings rate averaged 7.0%. At 4.7% the savings rate is lower than its historical average. With real disposable income rising at a 3.1% pace in recent months and real spending rising 3.1%, consumers can continue to spend at a 3.1% pace forever.
To maintain their pace of spending consumers had been running up their credit card bills. That is OK for a while because they have very little debt in relation to income currently, but that is not a sustainable situation. The rate of growth in credit card borrowing has slowed to 10.6%, but it remains far too rapid to be sustained. But with income now rising in line with spending, consumers’ reliance on credit cards as a source of spending should be reduced.
Thus far the additional debt has not been a problem. If that were the case, delinquency rates on consumer debt should have begun to rise. They have inched higher but that is all
GDP rose 2.8% in the third quarter and GDP growth is expected to be 2.5% in the fourth quarter. Steady job gains and significant wage gains will provide enough fuel to keep the economy growing at a moderate rate in the months to come.
Stephen Slifer
NumberNomics
Charleston, SC
Excellent analysis and charts. I am amazed home high consumer confidence remains with all the talk of recession in the media. I just added your site to my sites list of recommended economic links.
I think consumer confidence is based to a large degree on what is happening to the stock market. We all read the stuff that is published in the print media, magazine articles, blogs, tweets, etc. But perhaps there is so much information out that that we get ourselves confused and go back to how all that is affecting the stock market. If we as consumers were seeing obvious signs of prices rising because of the tariffs being applied to Chinese goods perhaps we would be less confident. That may be coming, but we are not there yet.
All the best.
Steve