Personal saving rate under Jimmy Carter

The share of after-tax income households do not spend.

Over 1977-01-20 to 1981-01-19, measured in Percent:

Term average

10.7 Percent

At the start

10.1 Percent

At the end

11.3 Percent

Change

+1.2 Percent

Low

9.3 Percent (1977-02-01)

High

11.9 Percent (1978-01-01)

Coverage

100% (48 observations)

Reading this series over a presidential term

Being a residual makes it jumpy and prone to revision, and it responds sharply to one-off events: stimulus payments push it to levels that say more about the transfer than about household habits.

It is not the money in anyone’s bank account. Capital gains do not count as income here, so a household growing richer through asset prices can show no saving at all, and the aggregate rate hides who is saving.

These are the observed values over the window above, and nothing more. This site does not say which direction is better, and none of this is a claim that Jimmy Carter caused the number to move.

What Personal saving rate measures · Jimmy Carter: the whole record · Chart it · Compare with another president · The source at FRED