Fortune is celebrating savings accounts offering up to 4.70% APY, but for working Americans whose grocery bills and rent payments have climbed double digits since 2020, that number is a mirage — a yield that leaves you poorer at year's end while banks pocket the spread.

Here's the pitch, according to Fortune's Oct. 26 rate roundup: top high-yield savings accounts are advertising up to 4.70% APY. SoFi, one of the featured platforms, offers a base savings rate of 3.30% APY, with a temporary 1.10% boost that can push you to 4.40% — but only for six months, and only if you jump through the direct-deposit hoops. The APY is, as the fine print makes clear, "variable and subject to change at any time."

That's the deal the financial press wants you excited about.

Now look at what they're not telling you. Real inflation — the kind measured by what you actually pay for food, shelter, and energy — has been running well above the headline CPI for years. If your savings earn 4.70% and real cost-of-living increases eat 6 or 7 percent, you're not saving. You're losing ground slower. The bank, meanwhile, lends your deposits out at prime rates north of 8%, pocketing the difference. This isn't a savings opportunity. It's a wealth-transfer mechanism dressed up in a press release.

The conditions attached to these "high-yield" accounts tell you everything about who they're actually built for. SoFi's advertised boosts require either recurring direct deposits or qualifying deposits of $5,000 every 31 days — terms that favor the already-liquid and exclude the paycheck-to-paycheck worker who needs yield the most. Miss the window, and your rate drops. The bonuses — $50 for $1,000 in deposits, $400 for $5,000 — are structured to capture deposits quickly, after which the variable rate can be ratcheted down at the bank's discretion.

Fortune framed this as a consumer opportunity. What went unmentioned: the Federal Reserve's rate hikes were supposed to crush inflation, but the passthrough to savers has been partial and conditional, while the passthrough to borrowers — credit cards, mortgages, small-business loans — has been immediate and full. The spread is where the banks eat. Working Americans get the crumbs and a lecture about financial discipline.

The South Bend Tribune, for its part, had nothing to say about any of this — its coverage was devoted to Notre Dame basketball.

The open question is how long Americans keep running on this treadmill. Banks are betting you'll see 4.70% and stop doing the math. The math says you're still losing.