That’s down more than half a percentage point from March, and down 1.7 percentage points from the start of this year, marking the lowest rate since June 2022.
“This is really reflective of continued impacts of inflation,” said Ted Rossman, principal analyst at Bankrate. “People are just not saving much at the end of the month.”
That makes it harder for households to weather a job loss or a costly car repair.
“The consumer is essentially running out of that buffer,” said Ryan Sweet, chief global economist at Oxford Economics. “That safety net is starting to get depleted.”
In many cases, Sweet said that safety net is gone altogether, meaning more household debt.
“We start to get concerned that consumers will turn to using credit cards, which we've already seen,” he said.
“The consumer is essentially running out of that buffer,” he said. “That safety net is starting to get depleted.”
In many cases, Sweet said that safety net is gone altogether. That means more household debt.
“We start to get concerned that consumers will turn to using credit cards, which we've already seen,” he said.
And that could cause people to fall behind on payments, Sweet said. But even as savings dwindle, consumers — especially with higher incomes — have kept on spending. Rossman said that hasn’t always been the case.
“Normally, when people are stressed about the economy, they pull back on things,” he said. “They stop traveling, they stop going out to eat.”
Rossman said that the fact there hasn’t been a pullback on a wide scale could mean consumers think the current spike in oil prices won’t last.
“We keep hearing, from the president and others, that war’s going to be over soon, gas prices are going to come back down,” he said. “I do wonder if some people are pulling more of the short-term lever about, ‘OK, I’ll dip into my savings for now,’ but it’s a short-term adjustment they’re willing to make.”
Still, the savings rate is less than half of what it was two years ago.
