July nominal consumption growth at consensus (+0.5%). Month-on-Month annualized real consumption growth at 4.5%, with June revised up from 2.6% to 3.2%. Moreover, annualized personal income ex-transfers grew 1.9% in July. Here is a snapshot of some key indicators followed by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee.

Figure 1: Nonfarm Payroll (NFP) employment from CES (bold blue), implied NFP from preliminary benchmark (bold blue), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding current transfers in Ch.2017$ (bold green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2017$ (black), consumption in Ch.2017$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2017$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), all log normalized to 2021M11=0. Source: BLS via FRED, Federal Reserve, BEA 2024Q2 2nd release, S&P Global Market Insights (nee Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Markit) (8/1/2024 release), and author’s calculations.

Here’s a detail of the consumption series, as of latest, and June release.

Figure 2: Consumption from July release (blue),

Keep reading this article on Econbrowser Blog - James Hamilton & Menzie Chinn.