It's The Economy Stupid: Income & Spending

Today’s numbers are:

Personal Income    0.4%, Economists survey estimate was 0.4%, prior period was 0.5%,

Personal Spending    0.4%, Economists survey estimate was 0.5%, prior period was 0.6%,

PCE Deflator   2.2%, Economists survey estimate was 2.2%, prior period was 1.8%,

PCE Core   1.0%, Economists survey estimate was 1.0%, prior period was 0.9%,

Okay, when you get down to the bottom of the numbers, basically, real personal spending growth is zero or very near zero.  It will be hard for the economy to expand and grow at a meaningful pace as long as that continues to be the case.