Why don't Americans save?

The perennial question gets a new airing in light of last week's Harris Poll showing that 27 percent of Americans have no personal savings and 34 percent have no retirement savings. NYT examines the issue in its Room for Debate. Some snippets:

Median household income has been stagnant for the last 10 years. Yet there are many new attractive goods and services, including iPads, fun vacations and high-speed Internet access. There are also costly emergencies and commitments when it comes to health care and education, two areas which have seen high rates of inflation over the last decade. It's hard to save money under those circumstances. -- Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University.

Spending and borrowing without limit isn't sustainable. A dynamic economy needs prudent lenders to restrain the exuberance of borrowers. Unfortunately, public policies have promoted the robotic extension of credit in amounts that can't possibly be repaid. We need to restore careful, case-by-case lending rather than bemoan the venturesomeness of the American consumer. --Amar Bhidé, a professor of international business at the Fletcher School, Tufts University.

The percentage of Americans who are unemployed or underemployed remains in the mid-teens. Some have had to raid their savings, assuming that they were lucky enough to have such savings, in order to put food on the table. Even after the unemployed have found work, it will take time to replenish those lost savings. Second, many Americans are saving. But their savings behavior is often overlooked because it takes the form of paying down debt. -- Barbara Dafoe Whitehead directs the John Templeton Center for Thrift and Generosity at the Institute for American Values.

The increase in the average savings rate is obscured by an income distribution which is so skewed toward the top that a large fraction at the bottom of the distribution barely gets by and is even less able to save today than before the crisis brought about high unemployment. -- Daniel Gros is the director of the Center for European Policy Studies.