Median US Household Has $11,700 in Savings

As of June 2018, the median U.S. household has $11,700 in savings and retirement accounts.

That means that half of all U.S. households have more than that amount saved while half have less. Twenty-nine percent of households have less than $1,000 in savings.

MagnifyMoney, an advertiser-supported financial site, reported these findings based on underlying data from the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

The average savings is much higher than the median: $175,510. That’s because older and wealthier Americans bring the average up. MagnifyMoney notes that "millennials, who have just started their savings journey, have currently socked away an average of $24,820. Gen Xers have $125,560 in retirement savings. Baby boomers and those born before 1946 have an average of $274,910."

Additionally, "The top 1 percent of households (as measured by income) have an average of $2,495,930 in these various saving accounts. The bottom 20 percent have an average of $8,720."

The vast majority of those savings (83 percent ) are locked up in retirement accounts.

Each weekday, Scott Rasmussen’s Number of the Day explores interesting and newsworthy topics at the intersection of culture, politics, and technology. Columns published on Ballotpedia reflect the views of the author.

Scott Rasmussen is founder and president of the Rasmussen Media Group. He is the author of "Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement Is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System," "In Search of Self-Governance," and "The People’s Money: How Voters Will Balance the Budget and Eliminate the Federal Debt." Read more reports from Scott Rasmussen — Click Here Now.