Consumer Spending (% GDP)

Personal consumption expenditures as a percentage of nominal GDP — the share of economic output driven by household spending. The US is structurally more consumption-heavy than peer economies at ~68–70% vs the EU's ~55%. A rising share indicates consumers are the primary growth engine; a declining share shifts the growth burden to investment or government. Compression typically signals consumer stress before it appears in employment data.

This indicator is computed by MacroLab from two FRED series: PCE divided by GDP, scaled by × 100. Both input series are sourced from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database.