CHICAGO — Bad news for savers: The national average rate on checking, savings and other deposit accounts has dipped below the 1 percent mark for the first time in at least 10 years – and doesn’t appear headed higher anytime soon, according to an analysis by Market Rates Insight.

Not surprisingly, the woeful state of the economy is the culprit: A “strong and significant negative relationship” between unemployment and the interest rates paid on consumers’ deposits has reared its ugly head, San Anselmo, Calif.-based MRI said.

The study found that a whopping 65 percent of the swing since 2001 in deposit interest rates, also linked to money-market and certificate-of-deposit accounts, is tied to the ebb and flow in the nation’s jobless rate, at 9.5 percent in July.

The gap between the national average of deposit rates and unemployment has widened considerably since the middle of 2007. The national average interest rates fell to 0.99 percent in July.

 

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