by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
After getting whacked by inflation, incomes have now outrun inflation for the 17th month in a row.
Fueled by incomes that outgrew inflation, our Drunken Sailors, as we’ve lovingly and facetiously called them for well over a year, continued to increase their spending in May, and they did so at a solid pace, roughly in line with the Good Times just before the pandemic, and they saved the rest, our Drunken Sailors, and the savings rate ticked up too.
Disposable income, adjusted for inflation, jumped by 0.5% in May from April, the biggest increase since January 2023, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis today. By contrast, in April, disposable income had barely kept up with inflation.