According to an Urban Institute study, more than 35 percent of Americans have debts and unpaid bills that have been handed over to collection agencies.
The unpaid bills include credit cards, hospital bills, mortgages, auto loans, student loans, gym membership fees or cellphone contracts.
Here are some interesting factoids …
According to an Urban Institute study, more than 35 percent of Americans have debts and unpaid bills that have been handed over to collection agencies.
The unpaid bills include credit cards, hospital bills, mortgages, auto loans, student loans, gym membership fees or cellphone contracts.
Here are some interesting factoids …
About 29% according to JP Morgan Wealth Management …
I expected the number to be much higher
Financial assets are more than half.
Material “stuff” such as autos is less than 10%
In nominal terms, the aggregate consumer balance sheet has just about fought its way back to pre-crash levels.
So, why does it feel so bad?
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Recently released research suggests that despite generally held assumptions, it wasn’t just uneducated people, and not just homeowners, who precipitated the financial crisis by taking on too much debt.
Before the financial crash of 2008, it was highly educated Americans who were most likely to pile on unmanageable levels of debt.
Overall, the percentage of Americans who were paying more than 40 percent of their income for debts like mortgages and credit card bills increased from about 17 percent in 1992 to 27 percent in 2008.
But college-educated people were more likely than those with high school or less education to be above this 40 percent threshold – considered to be a risky amount of debt for most households.
“People with college educations may have thought they were immune to any economic problems. But when people stop believing things might go bad, that’s when they get in trouble.”
The Homa Files 