{"id":1586,"date":"2005-07-22T08:46:05","date_gmt":"2005-07-22T08:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=1586"},"modified":"2005-07-22T08:46:05","modified_gmt":"2005-07-22T08:46:05","slug":"10_saving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=1586","title":{"rendered":"Saving 10% of Your Salary Is No Longer Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Commerce Department reports a surprisingly low American savings average of under 2% and for those who are dutifully socking away 10% of their pretax income it may not be enough.
\nJonathan Clements<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Just when folks ought to be saving more, they are saving less. Trouble ahead? You’d better believe it.
\nYes, I have heard all the arguments about how the true savings rate is higher than the 1.3% calculated for 2004 by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, or BEA. But don’t let that distract you from the bigger issue.
\nIn a world of disappearing company pensions, skimpy bond yields, rich stock valuations and rising life expectancies, anybody interested in a comfortable retirement should be saving a truckload of money every year — and yet most folks aren’t.
\nRate debate<\/b>. Among pundits, belittling the official savings rate has become something of a national pastime. Some of the arguments seem a little suspect, like the suggestion that buying televisions, cars and other consumer durables ought to be considered saving rather than spending.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nand stock-market gains don’t count:<\/p>\n

Other criticisms are more valid. For instance, stock-market gains don’t count toward the official savings rate, which strikes me as the right way to do it. Problem is, under the BEA’s methodology, if a winning stock is sold and capital-gains taxes are paid, that tax payment reduces the savings rate.
\nStill, the impact isn’t huge. Even in a big year for capital-gains taxes, like 2000, removing the tax impact would boost the savings rate by a mere 1.7 percentage points, calculates BEA research economist Marshall Reinsdorf.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Commerce Department reports a surprisingly low American savings average of under 2% and for those who are dutifully socking away 10% of their pretax income it may not be enough. Jonathan Clements: Just when folks ought to be saving more, they are saving less. Trouble ahead? You’d better believe it. Yes, I have heard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}