Americans earned $115.1bn more in July and bought almost nothing extra with it, because the $86.2bn they added on services was nearly cancelled by $49.9bn less spent on goods

Households took home $115.1bn more in July than they did in June.

They spent $36.3bn of it. That is the Bureau of Economic Analysis figure for the change in personal consumption expenditures, published on Wednesday morning alongside the second estimate of second quarter output, and once prices are taken out of it, almost nothing is left. Real consumer spending rose $1.3bn, which the release rounds to less than 0.1 percent at a monthly rate. In June it rose 0.4 percent.

The composition is the story rather than the total.

Spending on services rose $86.2bn in the month. Spending on goods fell $49.9bn. Subtract the second from the first and $36.3bn is what remains, which is the published increase exactly, so the flat month is not a month in which nothing happened. It is a month in which two large movements went in opposite directions.

The saving went up instead

Personal saving reached $712.0bn in July, and the saving rate, which the BEA calculates as saving over disposable income, was 3.0 percent. This publication reported the June rate at 2.7 percent when the previous release came out on 30 July, so the rate has risen three tenths of a point in a month. That comparison is drawn from our own earlier coverage of release 26-36 and not from this document, which prints only the July figure.

Disposable personal income, which is income after personal current taxes, rose $125.9bn, or 0.5 percent. It rose faster than income itself did, at 0.4 percent. Adjusted for prices, disposable income rose 0.4 percent against 0.3 percent in June.

What lifted the income line

Three things, in the release's own order: compensation, government social benefits, and personal income receipts on assets.

Within compensation the increase was led by private wages and salaries, on Bureau of Labor Statistics employment, hours and earnings data. Within government social benefits the leading contributors were Medicaid and Medicare, on the Monthly Treasury Statement and the federal budget. Within receipts on assets the lead came from personal dividend income.

Prices rose 0.2 percent on the month, and the core index, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.2 percent as well. Measured against July of last year the PCE price index is up 3.7 percent and the core index is up 3.3 percent.

One caveat the release puts in a footnote

The wage figures in this release are not the final ones. Revised wage and salary data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, covering January through March, has not been incorporated yet and will not be until the annual update of the national accounts on 30 September. Estimates for April through June were revised in this release, using updated employment data and revised Medicaid information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

That 30 September date is also the next release, and it carries August. There is no monthly print in between.

The figures came out at 8:30 on Wednesday morning. This desk had not covered them.