DEBTS UP
07/10/13 14:48
Quoted today in finance.yahoo.com from Washington, DC: Reuters reports that in August, 2013, “total consumer credit advanced by $13.63 billion to $3.04 trillion, Federal Reserve data showed on Monday.”
In 2010 there were 116,716,292 households in the United States. By now perhaps there are 120,000,000. If consumer debt was distributed equally across all households today, each household would have approximately $25,333 of outstanding consumer debt. However, it is likely that the top ten percent of households with the highest income and the bottom ten percent of households with very low income probably have little or no consumer debt.
For the eighty percent of households in the middle the average amount of consumer debt is probably about $31,687. This is the amount that a middle-class household would owe for items such as car loans, student loans, credit card balances and similar loans if the debt was equally distributed among them.
Of course the debt is actually distributed unequally.
When two married adults have borrowed to pay for their undergraduate and graduate educations their household may owe as much as one or two hundred thousand dollars in student debt. Others may owe tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills if they have suffered from serious health problems. Still others may owe large sums because they have chosen to live far beyond their income by “maxing out” their credit cards. And those with smaller incomes may have much smaller balances on whatever consumer debts they hold since they likely only borrow when it is absolutely essential in order to meet their day-to-day cost of living.
One may only wonder how such large amounts of consumer debt will impact everyone as the years unfold before us.
In 2010 there were 116,716,292 households in the United States. By now perhaps there are 120,000,000. If consumer debt was distributed equally across all households today, each household would have approximately $25,333 of outstanding consumer debt. However, it is likely that the top ten percent of households with the highest income and the bottom ten percent of households with very low income probably have little or no consumer debt.
For the eighty percent of households in the middle the average amount of consumer debt is probably about $31,687. This is the amount that a middle-class household would owe for items such as car loans, student loans, credit card balances and similar loans if the debt was equally distributed among them.
Of course the debt is actually distributed unequally.
When two married adults have borrowed to pay for their undergraduate and graduate educations their household may owe as much as one or two hundred thousand dollars in student debt. Others may owe tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills if they have suffered from serious health problems. Still others may owe large sums because they have chosen to live far beyond their income by “maxing out” their credit cards. And those with smaller incomes may have much smaller balances on whatever consumer debts they hold since they likely only borrow when it is absolutely essential in order to meet their day-to-day cost of living.
One may only wonder how such large amounts of consumer debt will impact everyone as the years unfold before us.