(Spencer Platt/Getty)
Personal income rose 0.4% in March, while personal spending climbed 0.1%, according to the Commerce Department.
Economists had forecast that personal income rose 0.3% in March, while spending increased 0.2%, according to Bloomberg.
Millan Mulraine, deputy chief US macro strategist at TD Securities, said real personal consumption activity ended the quarter on a weak note.
"As a result, our early tracking for Q2 is now closer to the lower end of the 1.5% to 2.0% range, suggesting a very weak rebound for growth from the disappointing +0.5% q/q performance in Q1," he wrote to clients.
"To be sure, we continue to have a very favorable outlook for consumption spending activity, given the constructive backdrop (buoyant labor market activity, high confidence and a formidable savings war chest). Nevertheless, unless we have a very strong rebound in spending momentum in April, the risks to our current GDP tracking will drift to the downside."
The report included data on personal consumption expenditures (PCE), a key way to gauge the level of consumer spending within the US economy.
It's also the Federal Reserve's preferred way to measure inflation, and the year-on-year gain in core PCE is closely watched by economists.
Core PCE, which excludes volatile food and gas costs, gained 0.1% month-on-month, and 1.6% year-on-year, a drop from 1.7% in the prior month.
Including these costs, the PCE deflator was at 0.1% month-on-month, and 0.8% year-on-year. All this was in line with forecasts.
"Overall, the tone of these reports [including the Employment Cost Index] was quite weak, playing into the current narrative of weakening growth and the subdued inflationary momentum," Mulraine said.
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