The personal savings rate also doesn't include home appreciation. For wealth accumulation you need capital gains. It's a testimony to how important it is to look at the right measurement. Blame analysts who use the personal savings measure to try to represent something it doesn't. It's an outrage that people yak about it as if it says something about wealth accumulation.
Gale says that when capital gains are included, the rate of wealth accumulation is high.
More households are saying they're planning for retirement, but I have an uneasy feeling they're not saving enough. Blandin says the gap between Social Security and what we'll need to live is the retirement savings gap and we need to fill it with our personal savings. You're on the right road if you're contributing whatever you can to a retirement plan. But we need to look at the many Americans who are struggling paycheck to paycheck and need incentives to put something aside. Gale agrees and adds that the ongoing effort to raise the contribution limit in retirement plans won't help the situation.