Bidenconomy: Credit Card Debt Rising Fast

I’ve been reliably told that the economy is great and everyone is making a ton of money

Credit card delinquencies are rising. Here’s what to do if you’re at risk

 Seriously overdue credit card debt is at the highest level in more than a decade, and people 35 and under are struggling more than other age groups to pay their bills.

The share of credit card debt that’s severely delinquent, defined as being more than 90 days overdue, rose to 10.7% during the first quarter of 2024, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. A year ago, just 8.2% of credit card debt was severely delinquent.

Who was VP the last time this happened?

The average annual interest rate on a new credit card is 24.71%, according to LendingTree, the highest since the company began tracking in 2019. That’s in part because the Federal Reserve has raised its key interest rate rate to a 23-year high to combat the highest inflation in four decades, which peaked at 9.1% in June 2022.

Simultaneously, pandemic-era aid such as stimulus payments, the child tax credit, increased unemployment benefits, and a moratorium on student loan payments has ended. Wage gains haven’t all kept up with inflation, which hits lower-income consumers harder, and rent increases have eaten into savings some consumers may have built up during the early years of the pandemic.

Silvio Tavares, CEO of VantageScore, a credit score modeling and analytics company, said that delinquencies have now exceeded their pre-pandemic levels, and that renters are especially vulnerable to falling behind.

And all this debt and the late payments will effect people’s credit score, making it harder to get a loan and get an apartment.

Credit cards only make up about 6.5% of consumer debt, according to a Bank of America Global Research report, but the increase in delinquencies appears to be outpacing income growth.

Pretty much everything is outpacing income growth. Weirdly, the word “Biden” is not mentioned once. Can you imagine if this happened while Trump was president?

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