RSSHousehold Saving Rates for Selected Countries
Household saving is the primary domestic source of funds to finance capital investment, which is a major stimulus for long-term economic growth. As the chart indicates, household saving rates vary a great deal between countries. This is partly due to the extent to which old-age pensions are funded by government rather than through personal saving and the extent to which governments provide insurance against sickness and unemployment. The age composition of the population is also relevant because the elderly tend to deplete financial assets acquired during their working years, so that a country with a high share of retired persons will usually have a low savings rate.
Over the period covered in the table, saving rates have been stable or rising in France, Austria, Italy, Norway and Portugal but have been falling in the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia. The saving rate in the United States is particularly troubling when the amount of Social Security and Medicare payments are taken into account. That is, without these payments, seniors would use up their savings at a faster rate leaving the U.S. saving rate even lower—possibly even negative—than it is at this time (0.5%).
45 Responses to “Household Saving Rates for Selected Countries”
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July 3rd, 2009 at 8:38 am
Free Health Care, mclockheart? Show me a world where healthcare is free!!!
Single Payer healthcare is the only option. It will free up the citizens money to allow for a savings account, which is a luxury people cannot afford today.
Yes, I agree with you about cell phones and HDTV. And I have a computer. I have a cell phone and had to buy an HDTV because, well I need my Channel 11. But I don’t have pay tv or radio, an ipod, a GPS sytem, Guitar Hero or Wii …. And I STILL can’t pay myself first. Why? Because my health bills a too costly and that is what I spend my money on!!!!
Oh, And my dogs health bill, too. Yes, I have a dog. I had two dogs, but one died.
The bill ran us $4,000 just to find out we had to put her to sleep. So I guess it’s my fault for having a dog, too.
I should just sit in a room and shoot myself, huh?
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:11 am
Very interesting topic and great replies. Now, the interesting part of this all is that the US Economy, which has been top dog due to a thing called consumerism. The fact is that the US is and always will be relied upon by all other nations to be the consumer driven economy. However, these times are changing. Since this topic was posted, the savings rate has increased to I believe close to 5% at a time when our economy and the world economies are relying on us to get things going again and the shift has gone away from consumer to saver. How long this will last? No telling, because we are all creatures of habits good and bad. I can only hope that when this happens again, it’ll be less severe. Now interesting enough, there is a lot of talk about foreign currency reserves dropping the greenback. Although this will not happen overnight, because of the high fluctuations of the dollar and the desire of foreign currency reserves to have a less volatile and stronger currency, I can easily see the dollar being dumped slowly. This will not be good for any of us and easier for our debt holders to call back on that huge deficit of ours, possibly dropping our credit rating. Like citizens, like country?
Regarding savings rates, I believe that the interest rates on savings accounts and CD’s in other countries are far better and gives much more incentive to save for that rainy day compared to here in the US.
January 19th, 2010 at 1:47 am
Dont bet on any part of the world having to rely on the US to use its goods. China and India each have a billion, and their economies are on the way up. They will have an explosion of the new emerging “middle class”, and that middle class will want what we want here in the US. The data doesnt lie. China just passed up the US as the #1 purchasers of automobiles. How fast will that number grow in 10, 20 and 30 yrs as more and more Chinese can afford to buy cars ?
June 28th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
[...] Not true. Capital formation is high in China (as high as 50% according to this report in 2007)* and India (savings rate of about 25-30%, with 29.2% in 2004-5 ). Both are highly unequal societies (India more so than China) where households save a far greater percentage of their income than in America (about 2%). [...]
July 10th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
[...] US Savings rate compared with other industrialized countries: [...]