this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
205 points (97.2% liked)

News

23311 readers
3536 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
dezmd@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
Blackbeard@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
205
Some Americans have become saddled with credit card debt as rent and everyday prices remain high (apnews.com)
submitted 9 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

While the U.S. economy is broadly healthy, pockets of Americans have run through their savings and run up their credit card balances after battling inflation for more than two years.

Experts worry that members of these groups -- mostly lower- and middle-income Americans, who tend to be renters -- are falling behind on their debts and could face further deterioration of their financial health in the year ahead, particularly those who have recently resumed paying off student loans.

“The U.S. economy is currently performing better than most forecasters expected a year ago, thanks in large part to a resilient consumer,” wrote Shernette McLoud, an economist with TD Economics, in a report issued Wednesday. “However, more recently that spending is increasingly being financed by credit cards.”

Americans held more than $1.05 trillion on their credit cards in the third quarter of 2023, a record, and a figure certain to grow once the fourth-quarter data is released by Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. next month. A recent report from the credit rating company Moody’s showed that credit card delinquency rates and charge-off rates, or the percent of loans that a bank believes will never be repaid, are now well above their 2019 levels and are expected to keep climbing.

...

Most analyses of Americans’ financial health tend to tell a tale of two consumers. On one side are the roughly two-thirds of Americans who own their homes and those who’ve invested in the stock market and done substantially well. They generally had the savings cushion necessary to weather high inflation. Delinquency rates on single-family homes remain at near historic lows and home prices have continued to climb.

But for the rest of America, things are looking rough.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Totally agreed with you. Credit cards used effectively can be beneficial to people, but those companies make money off of the people that aren't careful with it.

Also I want to thank you as your original comment provided inspiration for me to make an AskLemmy post about this kind of thing:

https://lemmy.ca/post/14780751

[–] tygerprints@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

I wish I had had instructive help on when and how to use credit cards when I was younger. I did go into debt and so I know how it happens and see how easily it lures people in. So I'm glad you're putting energy into creating a post about it and helping getting the word out.

For me, credit cards were a too-attractive lure and they ensnared me when I was least able to understand how negatively impactful they could be. So I hope getting the information out to others will help them avoid the same pitfalls. Frankly, a bank debit card is useful but most credit cards are probably best avoided if possible.