January Income Growth Slowest in Three Years

(Negative) January real disposable income was $12,799 billion dollars (seasonally adjusted at an annual rate). Unusually, this was not an all-time high for real disposable income. In January, real disposable income grew 2.0 percent compared with one year ago. This was the slowest rate of month-over-month growth since January 2014. The month-over-month rate of growth was below 3.0 percent in 11 of the last 12 months. The annual rate of growth has decelerated steadily since August 2015. In January, the annual rate of growth, now 2.7 percent, which was the slowest since October 2014. Also, this was the seventh month in a row that the annual rate of growth was below 3.1 percent, which is the historical average.