Number of the Week: Americans Dipping Into Savings.

"$311 billion: The net amount US consumers have withdrawn from savings and investment accounts over the past two years.

In the course of the recession and recovery, Americans have dipped deeper into their savings than at any point in the past six decades. That’s helping the economy now, but could leave it less prepared to withstand shocks in the future.

Over the two years ending September 2010, Americans withdrew a net $311 billion — or about 1.4% of their disposable income — from their savings and investment accounts, according to the Federal Reserve. That’s a sharp divergence from the previous 57 years, during which they never made a net quarterly withdrawal. Rather, they added an average of 12% of disposable income to their holdings of financial assets — including bank accounts, money-market funds, stocks, bonds and other investments — each year..."

at http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/01/22/number-of-the-week-americans-dipping-into-savings/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Feconomics%2Ffeed+%28WSJ.com%3A+Real+Time+Economics+Blog%29