CPI 3.7%Unemployment 4.2%30Y mortgage 7.24%Saving 3.8¢ per $1Debt service 11.11%Fed funds 3.88%10Y Treasury 4.98%U.S. debt $40.594TDebt / household $301,162Household pressure 43.2

Is after-tax income keeping up with prices?

Real disposable income

Disposable personal income (income after personal taxes) adjusted for inflation by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, shown as the change from a year earlier and per person in chained 2017 dollars.

1.0%

Change from a year ago, September 2026

−0.8 pts from a year earlier

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Shaded: U.S. recessions (NBER)Change from a year ago

What this measures

This is the broadest measure of whether households’ spending power is growing. It includes wages, benefits, interest, dividends, rental income and government payments like Social Security, minus taxes, and it is deflated by the PCE price index.

Large spikes in 2020 and 2021 are stimulus payments; the drops that follow are those payments ending, not a collapse in wages.

Source: BEA Personal Income and Outlays via FRED (DSPIC96, A229RX0). Updated automatically when the source publishes. How we handle data · Embed this chart

Real disposable income

What this measures

The household economy, once a month