American Consumers’ Disposable Incomes Shrinking

In a recent article on Americans’ disposable income, the Epoch Times’ Heide Malhotra highlights data from The Hamilton Project’s “Better Ways to Promote Saving through the Tax System,” by Karen Dynan. In the proposal, Dynan examines the design of government incentives for personal savings, outlining how reforms to these programs would improve saving and economic security for low-income households and reduce expensive and ineffective federal subsidies for high-income households. Malhotra discusses findings from the paper that show the personal saving rate has declined dramatically over the past several decades. Americans saved about 4 percent of after-tax personal income in 2012, down from average saving rates of 5.5 percent in the 1990s, 8.6 percent in the 1980s, and 9.6 percent in the 1970s. To read the full piece, click here.