Below you will find the results of my research regarding savings rates
by income quintile.
SAVINGS RATE BY INCOME CLASS
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Income class Savings Rate 2000
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Highest quintile -2.1
Fourth quintile 2.6
Middle quintile 2.9
Second quintile 7.4
Lowest quintile 7.1
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Source: The Ultimate Field Guide to the U.S. Economy
http://www.fguide.org/Bulletin/90sboom.htm
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See page 26 of this Federal Reserve publication:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2001/200121/200121pap.pdf
*****Tables 2 and 3 report net worth-income ratios and saving rates by
income quintile for 1992 and 2000.
====================================
?It has been widely reported that over the past decade, the overall
savings rate in the United States has fallen from around 9 percent of
disposable income to below zero?meaning that US consumption as a whole
is financed by an inflow of foreign capital. Maki and Palumbo found
that this overall decline in savings was entirely attributable to the
behavior of the top 20 percent, who own the bulk of the wealth.
The poorest 40 percent of the population actually doubled their
savings rate during the 1990s, to over 7 percent of income, as
unemployment declined significantly and the lowest-paid and most
vulnerable sections of the working class marginally improved their
financial position. The savings rate for the middle 40 percent of the
population remained roughly the same, at about 3 percent. But the
savings rate for the top 20 percent collapsed, from 8.5 percent of
income in 1992 to a negative 2.1 percent in 2000.?
WSWS
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jul2001/us-j13.shtml
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Search criteria:
U.S. savings rate
Personal saving rates +quintile
I hope you find this information helpful!
Best regards,
Bobbie7 |
Clarification of Answer by
bobbie7-ga
on
10 Aug 2004 07:11 PDT
It seems that the 1992 rates were themselves low historically, and the
savings rates continued to drop after that until around 2001. Since
then, the savings rate has inched up a little.
From 1998:
?The collapse of savings has been one of the most striking phenomena
of the US economy in the 1990s. In 1993, the savings rate was just
below 6 per cent, historically a figure that was already quite low.
But since then it has declined steadily every year to the current
level of just below zero.?
http://www.internetional.se/bakersaving9812.htm
From 2003:
?The personal savings rate in this country is a meager 4%, less than
half its average in 1970-1994. Low as it is, that 4% savings rate is
up from zero in the late 1990s.?
http://www.pfr.biz/qtr603.htm
The bottom line is that both the 1992 savings rate and the 2000
savings rate were low historically, but they weren't really
"anomalous" since they were typical of what was a decade-long decline
in savings that has only recently reversed course.
(Many thanks to my fellow researcher Juggler-ga for assisting me with this question)
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