Core PCE for August Unlikely to Land Precisely at 3.4% Annual Rate

The Bureau of Economic Analysis is scheduled to release its Personal Income and Outlays report for August on September 30, the same day it rolls out annual updates to national accounts data. That report will carry the first official reading of Core PCE inflation, the Federal Reserve's preferred gauge, for the twelve months ending in August. Ahead of that release, the only confirmed figures in hand describe income and spending, not prices. Official records show personal income rose 0.4 percent in August and personal consumption expenditures rose 0.6 percent, but no verified Core PCE year-over-year figure for the August period has been published yet. Claims about a specific August print were not properly tied to that measurement period and have been set aside. Given that the exact annual rate remains unknown before release, and the outcome for this measure gets sorted into seven separate tenths-of-a-point brackets, any single bracket, including exactly 3.4 percent, is unlikely to be the one that matches once the data lands. That is why the forecast leans toward this precise reading not being the outcome. The figure to watch is the September 30 release itself. Once the Bureau publishes the twelve-month change in the price index excluding food and energy, the actual bracket will be settled, and no amount of prior estimation will substitute for that number.