RE:Q1 was actually quite Decent in US 1) Current dollar gdp is just another way of saying nominal gdp. Nominal gdp is simply the product of real gdp with the Gdp deflator. It is better to use real Gdp when comparing quarters as this eliminates the inflation component.
Q1 real gdp ~ 1% which is lower than Q3 and Q4 of last year.
2) Gross Domestic Purchases Price Index excludes exports and includes imports. It measures the inflation rate for domestic purchases and a higher number is not good news.
3) The PCE price index is an alternative approach to headline inflation or Cpi as is the price index above. A higher PCE index is telling me that inflation is not well anchored and still stubbornly high. We want this number to be trending down and not higher. Btw, Jerome Powell prefers this measure for measuring inflation over Cpi.
Personal Income
4) Personal income going up doesn't tell us if their wages are offsetting the higher standard of living. For instance, personal income goes up 3% but inflation goes up 4%.
5) Disposable personal Income is a nominal figure as above but reported as an after tax calculation. You'd have to do more number crunching to determine if disposable personal income is keeping up with inflation.
6) Real disposable income is more relevant as it eliminates the inflation component. It is worth noting that the majority of the gains came in January and has slowed considerably in February and March. If you annualize the last 2 months, its growth rate is closer to 2.7%. Still, not a bad looking number.
7) The saving rate of 4.8% in Q1 is still well below trend at around 7%
The most bullish argument in all this is that real disposable income is positive and still growing at a reasonable pace. Everything else just leads me to believe that inflation is not going to 2% unless there are some job losses. After all, Jerome Powell calls for the US unemployment rate to reach 4.6% from the current 3.4% rate. That's a lot of people without work.