In its final estimates for the first quarter of 2024, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) revised all measures of income and corporate profits downward, according to a report released by the BEA on Thursday.
Thursday’s report details the third, and final, set of revisions to data comparing the first quarter of 2024 to the fourth quarter of 2023, in terms of seasonally adjusted annual rate of change. Across the board, measures of personal, corporate and national income growth were revised downward.
Compared to the previous quarter, the first quarter increase in real gross domestic income (GDI), was revised down 0.2 percentage points, from 1.5 percent to 1.3 percent. GDI is the total income that all sectors of an economy generate, including wages, profits, and taxes.
In terms of personal income, the income that is received by persons from all sources, the final picture for the first quarter is less sunny than BEA previously reported:
- Current-dollar personal income was revised down $7.7 billion to a seasonally adjusted annual growth rate of $396.8 billion in the first quarter.
- Disposable personal income growth was revised down by a seasonally adjusted annualized $26.6 billion to $240.2 billion in the first quarter.
- Real disposable personal income increased 1.3 percent, a downward revision of 0.6 percentage points.
Likewise, the first quarter profit picture for corporations is grimmer than the BEA previously reported:
- Profits from current production (corporate profits with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments) decreased $47.1 billion in the first quarter, a downward revision of $26.0 billion from the previous estimate.
- Profits of domestic financial corporations increased $65.0 billion in the first quarter, a downward revision of $8.7 billion from the previous estimate.
- Profits of domestic nonfinancial corporations decreased $114.5 billion, a downward revision of $0.3 billion.
Friday’s final report also notes that the nation’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.4 percent in the first quarter of 2024, an upward revision of 0.1 points from the previous estimate of 1.3 percent.
Even at 1.4 percent, the growth in GDP was the slowest quarterly increase in the last seven quarters.
The upward revision primarily reflects upward revisions to nonresidential fixed investment and government spending, along with a downward revision to imports. The upward revisions were partly offset by a downward revision to consumer spending.
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