Savings rate: It's not zero, but it's not impressive

Remember when the household savings rate in this country was close to zero? We've come a long way. The U.S. personal savings rate for May was 5 percent, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced Monday. It's been hovering around that point for months.

When you compare it to the embarrassingly low rate we saw in 2005, a time when home values were rising and credit was easy, today's savings rate looks pretty good. But savings has been much higher. In 1959 the savings rate was 7.5 percent and the rate peaked at 10.9 percent in 1982.

Now look at household savings rates around the world for 2011 (It's unclear if the data is through May). In Switzerland, we're talking 14.7 percent. In Germany, it's 11.4 percent. Guess our 5 percent savings rate isn't much to brag about.

Pair this with sobering new findings that show one-quarter of Americans couldn't come up with $2,000 in 30 days to handle an emergency, and that 19 percent of Americans who could come up with the funds would do so in part by selling belongings or taking out a payday loan, and it's clear we need to find ways to take our savings up a notch.