Courtesy of Mish.
The BEA’s Personal Income and Outlays report shows consumers came to life in April.
Income rose 0.4% month-over-month and spending rose a whopping 1.0%.
Inflation adjusted, the numbers look good, not fantastic. The headline reports would have you believe otherwise.
Let’s take a look at a couple mainstream media reports, then dive into the “real” picture.
U.S. Consumer Spending Climbed at Fastest Pace in Nearly Seven Years
The Wall Street Journal reports U.S. Consumer Spending Climbed at Fastest Pace in Nearly Seven Years.
Personal spending, which measures how much Americans paid for everything from raincoats to restaurants, increased 1.0% in April from a month earlier, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday. That was biggest one-month jump since August 2009.
Consumers had been steadily pulling back since mid-2015, one factor behind the paltry economic growth in the first quarter of the year.
Now it looks like the economy is picking up again, following a familiar pattern of a gloomy winter leading into a brighter spring.
Eye Catcher Spending
The Bloomberg Econoday reports …
