Here are updates of two charts I have previously posted regarding income and consumer spending during the Covid-19 recession, including new numbers for October and revisions to numbers for prior months.

On the first chart, the stacked columns show estimated personal income for the U.S. as a whole, by month, from January 2019 through October 2020. The numbers are seasonally adjusted annual rates. I have broken personal income into four parts: employee compensation (wages and salaries, and supplements); unemployment insurance benefits; other government social benefits (e.g., social security, Medicare and Medicaid); and other income (e.g. interest, dividends and profits of non-corporate business activities, including property rentals). The unusually large value of other government social benefits for April reflects the government stimulus checks mailed to low- and moderate-income households. With these payments, personal income was 10.3 percent higher in April than in February, the last month before the Covid-19 recession began.

Personal income in October 2020 was 3.2 percent higher than in February but 0.7 percent lower than in September. The reason for the July to August decline is the expiration of the special $600 per week federal UI benefit at the end of July. Total government benefits in October were 20.1 percent greater than in February, but 42.0 percent less than in April. Unemployment insurance payments in October were 76.8 percent less than in July. Employee compensation in October was 0.8 percent less than in February, but 0.7 percent greater than in September.

Also on the first chart, the black line shows monthly personal consumption expenditures. Again, these numbers are seasonally adjusted annual rates. Consumption expenditures in October 2020 were 1.6 per cent less than in the preceding February, despite the 3.2 percent increase in personal income over this period. Between September and October, personal consumption expenditures increased by 0.5 percent while personal income decreased by 0.7 percent.

The second chart shows the personal saving rate, monthly from January 2019 through October 2020. (The saving rate is equal to the amount of personal saving divided by the amount of disposable personal income. Disposable personal income equals personal income less personal current taxes, which are mostly income taxes).

The saving rate jumped from 8.3 percent in February to an astounding 33.7 percent in April and then declined in steps to a still quite high 13.6 percent in October.

All of these numbers are preliminary estimates that will be revised as more information becomes available to the statisticians at the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The press release is here. A table showing the effects of selected federal pandemic response programs on personal income is here