According to the BEA, the Personal Savings Rate has increased significantly in the last few years and hasn't been negative in at least the last 6 years.
Note that this is savings rate net of taxes. It has been on a mostly steady decline since it has been calculated, with some spikes and a leveling out slightly higher than the rate before the last recession.
That's extremely reasonable for a savings account. The fed rate at the time was around 5% [1]. Today's is much lower which raises questions about where this rate is coming from.
I don't share that information, but I'd suggest you check sites like Bankrate or other comparison sites (warning, they are all affiliate sites) to check out savings rates.
Suffice to say, I went from something like .01% APY to considerably more than .01%.
Why is this surprising? Overnight rates are still 0.25%, and 1-month bills are 0.46%. Online savings accounts are at 0.6-0.65% now and have not fallen below 0.5% the whole pandemic. The oddity is why they've not fallen to 0% before, but that is because there is an effective duration of savings which may have been shortening recently as rates rise.
As for brick-and-mortar banks still at 0%, going by their low-balance fees, 0.5% probably only covers their overhead, if that.
That wasn't an unreasonable rate at that time[1], I don't recall the exact timing, but my credit union was at 4% on savings for a while, before fed set interest rates to near zero for many years.
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