With the economic downturn still fresh in the minds of most Americans, you’d think rates of saving would be climbing through the roof. Surely people recognize — at long last — the need to sock away more money. After all, the job market is unstable, the stock market uncertain, and housing values notoriously unreliable. But one recent study showed that American savings rates have increased only slightly in the past decade, from 2.9% to 3.6%. That’s substantially less than Americans were saving in the 1980s, and much lower than savings rates in some other developed countries. (more…)