Article originally appeared on www.zerohedge.com.
Authored by Mike Maharrey via MoneyMetals.com
Talking heads and politicians laud the “resilience” of American consumers. They managed to keep spending despite rapidly rising prices thanks to post-pandemic price inflation.
But these pundits and politicos rarely talk about how Americans have weathered the inflationary storm. When you look at the big picture, it’s not a story of resilience but one of desperation.
In a nutshell, Americans blew through their savings and now they’re running up their credit cards.
The personal savings rate plummeted in July, dropping to 2.9 percent. That was down from 3.1 percent the prior month. It was the lowest savings rate since the COVID crash.
The current savings rate is roughly in the same ballpark as it was just before the Great Recession, as you can see from this graph courtesy of ZeroHedge.
With most people locked down in their homes receiving government …
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