"With a steady, significant share of the working population saving nothing or relatively little, it's virtually guaranteed that they'll be unable to afford a modest emergency expense or finance retirement. That amounts to a financial fail," Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com, says in the report.

Why aren't they saving? Expenses—a lot of them—for one, say 39 percent of respondents.

And jobs that don't pay enough, for 16 percent. Another 16 percent say they "haven't gotten around to it." Thirteen percent cited debt, the same amount as last year's respondents, and just 6 percent said they don't need to save more—interpreted by Bankrate.com as respondents' having achieved their savings goals and/or having sufficient levels of income.

It's true that approximately three quarters of working Americans are saving something, but 67 percent are failing to save more than 10 percent of their incomes.

Unsurprisingly, among those saving more than 15 percent of their incomes are the 20 percent of workers with higher incomes (more than $75,000 a year).

Interestingly, younger millennials, aged 18–27, were second only to seniors between the ages of 64–72 in their zeal to save, with 23 percent of younger millennials and 27 percent of older boomers socking away more than 15 percent of their incomes.

In addition, 21 percent of college grads were saving 15 percent or more of their incomes, while just 18 percent of those with some college and only 9 percent of those with a high school education or less managed that level of savings.

Among those pleading debt as a reason for their lack of savings, incomes were often high; 17 percent of those making more than $75,000 per year cited debt more than those in any other income bracket.

Incidentally, Republicans blamed debt more often than Democrats (21–13 percent), and members of both parties did so more often than Independents (10 percent).