What Is the Personal Saving Rate? How It's Measured

The personal saving rate is personal saving divided by disposable (after-tax) personal income, expressed as a percent. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) publishes it monthly. Its Personal Income and Outlays report for May 2026, released June 25, 2026, put the national rate at 3.0%. That figure is a nationwide average, not a personal target.

What is the personal saving rate?

It measures the share of after-tax income that households did not spend in a given month. Two terms do the heavy lifting:

• Disposable personal income (DPI): income left after taxes. BEA defines it as personal income minus personal current taxes.
• Personal saving: DPI minus personal outlays. Outlays are mostly consumer spending, plus interest payments and a small amount of transfer payments.

The saving rate is personal saving expressed as a percentage of DPI. BEA describes this calculation in its Personal Income and Outlays release and its national accounts methodology on bea.gov.

How does BEA calculate the personal saving rate?

The formula has two steps.

1. Personal saving = Disposable personal income − Personal outlays
2. Personal saving rate = (Personal saving ÷ Disposable personal income) × 100

Here is a simple illustration with round numbers. If a hypothetical economy had disposable income of $22 trillion and personal outlays of $21 trillion, personal saving would be $1 trillion, and the rate would be about 4.5% ($1T ÷ $22T). These figures are invented to show the mechanics; the real totals appear in each BEA release.

Notice what sits in each spot: the denominator is after-tax income, not gross pay, and the numerator is what's left after spending. The rate is an arithmetic result, not a survey of intentions.

What did the May 2026 personal saving rate report say?

BEA's Personal Income and Outlays report for May 2026 was released on June 25, 2026, per the BEA release schedule on bea.gov. The report lists personal income, disposable income, personal outlays, and the personal saving rate for the month. The headline national saving rate in that release was 3.0% (personal saving of $704.2 billion).

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis mirrors this series as PSAVERT ("Personal Saving Rate") on its FRED database, where the month-by-month history comes straight from BEA data. Confirm the exact current-month value on bea.gov or fred.stlouisfed.org, since BEA revises prior months as new source data arrives.

Is the national saving rate a target for me?

No. The published rate is an aggregate. BEA sums saving and disposable income across all U.S. households and divides, blending high earners and low earners, savers and spenders, into a single average. A household whose income and spending look nothing like the national totals can sit far above or below the reported figure. The number describes the economy as a whole, not any one budget.

How do I calculate my own saving rate?

The household version uses the same two-step math, scaled to your numbers. Use take-home pay (after taxes and payroll deductions) as the denominator and the amount you didn't spend as the numerator.

Personal saving rate = (Amount saved ÷ Take-home pay) × 100

Here is a worked monthly example:

Item	Amount
Take-home pay	$5,000
Total spending	$4,400
Amount saved	$600
Saving rate	12.0%

The math: $5,000 − $4,400 = $600, and $600 ÷ $5,000 = 0.12, or 12%. The budget-basics calculator runs your own figures once you enter income and spending categories and read off what's left.

A few mechanical choices change the result:

• Gross vs. take-home denominator. BEA uses after-tax income. Using gross pay instead lowers the percentage for the same dollars saved.
• What counts as saving. Common inclusions are deposits to savings, brokerage contributions, and retirement contributions. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (consumerfinance.gov) describes building a budget by separating income, spending, and saving, which maps to the same three pieces BEA uses.
• Debt principal. Paying down loan principal reduces what you owe; whether to label it "saving" or "spending" is a definitional choice.

What counts as income and spending?

For your personal math, take-home pay is the cash that lands in your account after federal and state tax withholding, Social Security and Medicare (FICA), and any pre-tax deductions like health premiums. Spending is everything that leaves: rent or mortgage, food, transportation, insurance, subscriptions, and discretionary purchases. Whatever remains is your saving for that period.

BEA's national series and your household number answer different questions. The national rate, 3.0% in the May 2026 report, summarizes the whole economy. Your own rate summarizes one budget. Both come from the identical formula: saving divided by after-tax income, times 100.