Real Changes in the Value of Capital in the

Personal income may be defined as the algebraic sum of ( 1) the market value of rights exercised in consumption and (2) the change in the value of the store of property rights between the beginning and the end of the period in question. Income is the money value of the net accretion to one’s economic power between two points of time. Income No. 1 is thus the maximum amount which can be spent dur-ing a period if there is to be an expectation of maintaining intact the capital value of prospective receipts.... Income No. 1 ex post equals the value of the individual’s consump-tion plus the increment in the money value of his prospect which has accrued during the week; it equals Consumption plus Capital ac-cumulation.... We are thus forced back on the central criterion, that a person’s income is what he can consume during the week and still expect to be as well off at the end of the week as he was at the beginning