Their financial plight mirrors the challenges other older Americans are facing. A sobering new report by Demos, a public policy group in New York, finds that between 1992 and 2001, the average credit-card debt among Americans over age 65 nearly doubled to $4,041.
Those between 65 and 69, many of them recent retirees, reported a stunning 217 percent increase in credit-card debt to $5,884. That's up from $1,842 in 1992. Among those between 55 and 64, credit-card debt jumped nearly 50 percent to $4,088. (The average American family saw an increase of 53 percent, to $4,196.)