P.M. BRIEFING : Personal Income Growth Slowing

WASHINGTON — Personal income growth slowed from July through September for the second consecutive quarter last year as the economy was sliding toward recession, government figures showed today.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis said personal incomes grew 1.2% nationally in the third quarter, down from 1.3% during the second quarter and 2.1% in the first.

“The continued slow growth of U.S. personal income in the third quarter of 1990 was most noticeable in the Plains region, where farm income declined, and in New England, where non-farm income was weak,” the bureau report said.

Three of the nation’s eight regions grew faster than the nation as a whole--the West, 1.7%; the Southwest, 1.5%, and the Southeast, 1.3%. Two other regions--the Great Lakes and the Midwest--equaled the national average.