Household savings fell to only 3.8% of personal disposable income last year, down from 6.2% in 1992.
The ratio of debt to personal disposable income has doubled since the late 1980s, to over 100%.
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By reducing or eliminating a tax on consumer earnings, states would free up more personal disposable income.
Net consumer borrowing relative to personal disposable income has fallen 4% in the year through March, the second-largest drop in 55 years.
In the short term, the supply of housing is more or less fixed, so house prices are mainly driven by demand factors: namely, personal disposable income, real interest rates and the return offered by alternative investments such as equities.
Most dramatic has been Britain: house prices have risen by more than 25% over the past year, and Goldman Sachs estimates that mortgage equity withdrawal was equivalent to 8.5% of personal disposable income in the fourth quarter, more than at the peak of Britain's housing bubble in the late 1980s.
We learned today, from a separate report on personal income, that, in October, the first month of the fourth quarter, personal income and disposable personal income both increased by less that 0.1 percent.
Disposable personal income growth remains limited, but on an inflation-adjusted basis has been virtually non-existent.
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Real disposable personal income per capita is up 1.3 percent between July 2011 and July 2012.
In America and Australia, mortgage equity withdrawal has been running at a record 4% of disposable personal income.
They add up to disposable personal income, and then other adjustments are needed to take you the rest of the way to total GDP.
Yet attendance at ballparks went up during this period because disposable personal income (DPI) rose an average of 5.6% a year from 2004 through 2007.
Beginning about 1982 savings rates fell from about 12% of disposable personal income to close to zero as reported by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The data point most utilized by those who espouse the idea of a healthy consumer is the household debt service ratio (DSR), a metric that relates debt payments to disposable personal income.
Personal saving fell to just 0.5% of disposable income in April and May, the Fed says.
Anyone who buys a Mac demonstrates enough disposable income to make decisions based on factors besides price alone: aesthetics, ease of use, personal image, etc.
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