Earning, Saving & Spending

Personal income and spending reports are due out at 8:30 a.m. Monday from the Bureau of Economic Analysis – the same folks who brought us Friday’s advance GDP report, which showed that the nation’s economy still was contracting in the second quarter of 2009, but at a slower pace.

The personal income and outlay release uses aggregated numbers for the entire country, so it’s not a great source of nitty-gritty salary detail. Read the May 2009 edition, on the Web site now, for a look at the format and data that will be updated Tuesday with June results.

While very macro, it’s still a decent springboard for doing a grassroots story about household earning and savings trends. (The BEA report assumes that the different between income and outlay equals individual savings, so that figure is part of the monthly report.)

People never, and I mean never, get tired of reading about wages – their own and other workers. And this summer, story angles about household income abound. Aside from the obvious jobless-related approach, many employed workers are taking a pay cut as companies and governments adopt the practice of using unpaid furloughs to cut costs. Check into how widespread this practice is and what the ripple effects are in your area.

It’s not all bad news. Remember that many employees are seeing a few extra stimulus dollars in their checks – how are they spending them? Paying down debt, saving or splurging? You can ask workers themselves, keeping in mind that the real frugalities are home washing out used Ziploc bags and not spending in the public venues like malls and restaurants where you usually find ‘real people’ for your stories. Try to catch people in money-neutral locations – parks, the library, etc., to get a balanced sampling.

Also talk with local banks and credit unions about trends they are seeing. Check with payroll managers – are more workers hustling to retire 401(k) loans or having savings automatically debited right from their checks? Giant payroll processors like ADP and
PayChex offers some tidbits in their media centers; it’s worth a call to them or smaller regional providers to see if they can comment on payroll trends.

We also just had a federal minimum wage increase to $7.25 per hour, effective July 24. (Keep in mind that some states’ higher minimums supersede the federal rate; here’s a list from the Department of Labor.) Minimum and living wages are controversial topics, especially among small business owners, so there’s another angle for you.