The poorest households have almost spent the surplus savings they had been able to accumulate during the Covid-19 health crisis, while the wealthiest continue to accumulate additional savings, according to a study published on Tuesday by the Economic Analysis Council (CAE).
At the start of 2022, the additional woolen stocking of households still represents 6% of the total stock of their savings, which means “that we still do not see, at least globally, any frank dissaving behavior among French households”, according to the study based on the analysis of a sample of anonymized household banking data from the Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale network.
The still-present health uncertainty and the acceleration of inflation since last fall may explain why households are not spending the money they have set aside more quickly.
No change for 10% of the wealthiest households
But the behavior of households vis-à-vis their savings depends on their standard of living, observe the authors of the CAE study.
The poorest 20% of households “would have consumed almost all of the additional savings that were generated during the health crisis”.
In addition, if there is still an overall increase in savings, “from September 2021, (it) begins to decrease” for all categories of households, “with the exception” of the 10% most well-off ” for which it seems to be stabilizing,” they say.
An unprecedented savings surplus of 170 billion euros
The analysis of household bank accounts further shows that since March 2021, the wealthiest 10% have above all seen an increase in deposits in their securities accounts (which allow them to invest in the stock market), which could be explained by the good health of stock market indices after their fall in early 2020.
From March 2020, the first restrictive measures to deal with the health crisis led to a sharp drop in household consumption, while the incomes of most of them were maintained thanks to public support measures, such as partial unemployment or the solidarity fund for the self-employed.
According to the Banque de France, they have thus accumulated an unprecedented savings surplus of 170 billion euros. While household consumption is the main driver of French growth, economists are carefully scrutinizing the level of household savings, and at what rate they will spend this additional savings.