Consumers are ‘tapped out’ after years of high inflation and as pandemic-era savings have evaporated

Summary

US credit card defaults have surged to their highest level since 2010, with $46 billion in loans written off in the first nine months of 2024—a 50% increase from the prior year.

Rising inflation and elevated interest rates have strained low-income households, whose savings rates have dropped to zero.

Total credit card debt surpassed $1 trillion in 2023, with Americans paying $170 billion in interest over the past year.

Delinquency rates remain high, signaling further financial stress, as hopes for significant interest rate cuts in 2025 dim.

  • Porto881English
    26•11 days ago

    … and now we don’t have Obama to help. God save us, because our politicians certainly won’t

  • @Ensign_CrabEnglish
    19•11 days ago

    It wasn’t a problem when people maxed out their cards just to afford groceries.

    Now it’s a problem.

  • HubertManne
    9•11 days ago

    curiously 2010 was the last time I was unemployed for as long as I have been recently.

  • sunzu2
    8•10 days ago

    as hopes for significant interest rate cuts in 2025 dim.

    Corporate propaganda spotted…

    Credit card Interest rates have very weak correlation to the feds benchmarks.

    And they are always 29.99 if you default haha

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppetEnglish
      4•10 days ago

      Most of them are that anyways outside of promotional periods. I considered the Costco Visa which is supposed to be for people with very good credit, and the rate is astronomical. Nah!

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppetEnglish
    4•10 days ago

    Well, that’s never a good sign for the economy. Even worse, we have an incoming administration that just doesn’t give a shit, even if they were competent to do something about it, which they’re not.

  • @moistclump
    1•11 days ago

    I couldn’t access the article without signing up. Mobile thing?