US personal income and spending beats forecasts in July, savings rate marked-up
Personal income and spending jumped last month, alongside sharp upward revisions to estimates of the personal savings rate.
According to the Department of Commerce, in June personal income and spending in the States increased by 0.4% month-on-month, just as analysts had forecast.
Nevertheless, consumption outlays for May were revised higher from a preliminary estimate of 0.2% to 0.5%.
More significantly, as a result of five-yearly revisions to the country's Product and Income accounts, the US personal savings rate was revised higher to 6.8%.
Commerce said the personal saving rate for 2013 was revised up 1.4 percentage points to 6.4%, up 1.6 percentage points to 7.3%
for 2014, up by 1.5 percentage points to 7.6% for 2015, up by 1.8 percentage points to 6.7% for 2016, and by 3.3 percentage points to 6.7% for 2017.
Inflation pressures also undershot, with the headline and core rates for the personal consumption expenditures price deflator, the central bank's preferred inflation gauge, printing at up by 2.2% and 1.9% year-on-year, respectively.
Those two measures were unchanged from their readings for the prior month, both of which were marked down by a tenth of a percentage point.
Economists had forecast readings of 2.4% and 2.0%, respectively.