The Pandemic Has Created a Class of Super-Savers
One paradox of the pandemic economy is that even as businesses have shut down and jobs have disappeared, American households have on average been saving more money than they usually do. The country’s “personal saving rate”—the share of people’s disposable income that gets saved or invested—has rarely exceeded 10 percent in the past 20 years, but it shot up to more than three times that in April. In the first few months of the coronavirus pandemic, the checking-account balances of Americans up and down the income scale rose, thanks to government aid.
Now that that aid has been discontinued, many people’s balances are likely falling, making daily life even more precarious. But one segment of the country will keep on saving, seemingly living in an economy all their own. Their incomes have remained steady, while their spending has decreased dramatically.
