Graph and download economic data for Personal Saving Rate (PSAVERT) from Jan 1959 to Jun 2025 about savings, personal, rate, and USA.

This table contains 58320 series, with data for years 1999 - 2016 (not all combinations necessarily have data for all years). This table contains data described by the following dimensions (Not all combinations are available): Geography (20 items: Canada; Atlantic; Newfoundland and Labrador; Prince Edward Island; ...); Assets and debts (27 items: Total assets; Private pension assets; Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs), Registered Retirement Income Funds (RRIFs), Locked-in Retirement Accounts (LIRAs) and other; Employer-sponsored Registered Pension Plans (EPPs); ...); Net worth quintiles (6 items: Total, all net worth quintiles; Lowest net worth quintile; Second net worth quintile; Middle net worth quintile; ...); Statistics (6 items: Total values; Percentage of total assets or total debts; Number holding asset or debt; Percentage holding asset or debt; ...); Confidence intervals (3 items: Estimate; Lower bound of a 95% confidence interval; Upper bound of a 95% confidence interval).

Over the course of the 1920s, the value of money deposited in commercial banks grew at a fairly steady rate, rising from around 19 billion U.S. dollars in 1921 (the initial dip was due to the post-WWI recession), to 25 billion at the end of the decade. However, the onset of the Great Depression saw these figures drop drastically, and the value of deposits fell from around 26 to 16 billion dollars between 1930 and 1933. This was not only due to high unemployment and lower wages, but many Americans also lost faith in the banks during the Depression - many blamed the banks for the Depression as frivolous lending practices had contributed to the Wall Street Crash; banks demanded early repayment of debts and often repossessed the property of those who could not afford to do so (also leading to evictions), and many banks failed after the Crash and were not perceived as safe. It was not until 1936 where deposits in commercial banks returned to their pre-Depression levels, after the Roosevelt administration put a number of safeguards in place and helped restore public faith in the American banking system.

In contrast to commercial banks, the total amount of money deposited in savings accounts continued to rise throughout the Great Depression, albeit at a much slower rate than in the 1920s. The reason for continued increase was due to the disproportionate impact the Depression had across socioeconomic groups - most working and middle-class Americans did not have the means to have a savings account