Most personal-finance advice is about decisions. This is about the cost of not deciding. Every month, SwitchWize measures the gap between the best rates actually available and what most households earn on cash or pay on debt — because that spread, multiplied across millions of accounts left untouched, is the quiet tax of inertia.
This is the current reading.
Savings: best available vs the floor
Best reviewed rate — bound to live data.
Chase, BofA, Wells Fargo.
Savings figures: top rate bound from SwitchWize live data; national average from FDIC; megabank rate from public disclosures, as of the lastVerified date.
The savings gap
The distance between the best insured savings rate and what the megabanks pay is the single widest, most fixable gap in household finance. It requires no market view and no risk — the same federal insurance applies at both ends. The only thing standing between the two numbers is the effort of moving idle cash.
The debt gap
On the other side of the ledger, the average APR on balance-carrying cards sits above 21%. Where the savings gap is money left unearned, the debt gap is money actively bleeding out — and it compounds monthly. For households carrying both, the combined drag runs well into four figures a year, none of it requiring a single market call to fix.
How to read this index
Two principles. First, the right benchmark is never the average — it is the best available rate for the same insurance and liquidity. Second, closing these gaps is the highest-certainty move in personal finance: no forecasting, no risk-taking, just correcting setups that went stale. We publish this monthly so the number stays honest as rates move.
Each gap has its own deep dive: why the national average misleads, the banks paying least, when a CD beats savings, and the real cost of carrying a balance. On the exclusivity side, see the two most exclusive cards in the world.
- ✦~10x savings gap — Top insured accounts pay many times the average. Same federal protection, far more yield.
- ✦0.01% megabank floor — The largest banks anchor the national average near zero. Idle cash there earns almost nothing.
- ✦21%+ debt gap — Average APR on carried balances — money actively compounding against you.
- ✦$0 risk to fix — Closing these gaps needs no market forecast and no risk-taking. Just attention.
Methodology
Best available rates are drawn from SwitchWize's live rate data (continuously ingested and verified). The national savings average is the FDIC figure (FRED series SNDR). Megabank standard rates are from public disclosures. The average credit card APR is the Federal Reserve G.19 figure for accounts assessed interest. Dollar figures are illustrative, computed on round balances at current rates, and refresh with each monthly update.
Sources
FDIC; Federal Reserve G.19; public bank disclosures; SwitchWize live rate data. As of the ratesVerifiedAt date and subject to change.
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