Immediately after the 2008 financial crisis, the national savings rate launched from 2.5% to over 7.5%. This occurs in countries anytime when there is broad economic uncertainty and people fear losing their jobs.
However, the economic recovery since then has been so sluggish that real disposable income is dropping and forcing households to save less. The combination of increasing taxes of all kinds, along with the increased cost of basic necessities like gasoline, rent, and electricity, is putting a strain on household budgets. There are charts for all of these but they are best summarized in the single savings graph that is trending downward. Once the Affordable Care Act is fully enacted in the next two years, health care costs will also eat up more household income than ever before.
Meanwhile, the financially-literate minority have the tools to figure out how to pay for all of these cost increases so they can keep their savings rate up.