Americans owe $800 billion in credit card debt, more than triple the amount from 1989, and a 31 percent increase from five years ago, according to a recent report, "The Plastic Safety Net," by the Center for Responsible Lending, and Demos, a research group based in New York.
The study found that a third of low- and middle-income American households used credit cards for basic expenses - rent, groceries and utilities - in any 4 of the last 12 months.
Those with the worst credit card debt were people ages 50 to 64, who owed $9,124
A fraudulent appraisal "can lead homeowners to borrow more money than their homes are worth, putting themselves at risk of being 'upside down' in a home -- e.g. not being able to sell for a high enough price to pay off their mortgage," according to a briefing paper on appraisal fraud put out by Demos, a New York-based think tank.
According to the advocacy group Demos, the average balance among lower- and middle-income households is $8,650.
"World News Tonight's" special series "Credit Crunch" aims to help you get on the road to becoming debt free.
Draut argues that "with the possible exception of having a larger array of entertainment and other goods to purchase, members of Generation X appear to be worse off by every measure" than prior generations.
Robert Frank, an economist at Cornell University, for instance, found that in counties with the widest income gaps, rates of personal bankruptcy and divorce rates were higher than average.
Today's 20-somethings are likely to be the first generation to not be better off than their parents." This is the first line of Economic State of Young America, a report released by Demos, a nonpartisan public policy think tank in New York City. And that's a troubling thesis for a generation that grew up being told they can do and be anything.
In their new book, "Good Jobs America: Making Work Better for Everyone," Paul Osterman and Beth Shulman argue that the United States needs to worry about not just creating millions more jobs but also ensuring that the jobs are good ones.
The public is overwhelmed by budget deficits, shrinking public supports, and the inability of its government to compromise. In this climate, so-called minority issues seem like a distraction. But black and Latino men between the ages of 16 and 24 are profoundly more likely to be poor than whites, more likely to be unemployed or the victims of violent crime, and less likely to graduate from high school.
Their employment prospects are dim, their debt is high, their lives are on hold and a stunning number are living with their parents, even into their 30s.
The jobs crisis and rising healthcare costs have left millions of young Americans without healthcare coverage but the health reform law is turning things around, according to a new report from the liberal groups Demos and Young Invincibles.
White youths are more pessimistic about their economic future than young minorities, though black and Hispanic youth are more likely to be in a worse financial position right now.
As President Obama dusts off his 2008 theme of “hope” in anticipation of his reelection campaign, he has a problem to get around: Among young voters, one of his most crucial constituencies, hope is, like, so yesterday.
I wrote last month about how the economy could shift the youth vote more toward a GOP candidate. A report out today by Young Invincibles and Demos, called "The State of Young America," finds that even though young people are still optimistic about their future, they are the first generation to be worse off than their parents in many respects.
While the expansion of health insurance to young adults has been one of the consistently positive stories around the ACA, a new report points out the news isn’t all that good. The rate of full-time workers between 18 and 24 years old with employer-sponsored insurance dropped 12.8 percent over the past decade, while dropping 8.5 percent for workers ages 25 to 34.
The report’s first chapter, Jobs and the Economy, explores how long-term trends and the current tumultuous economic environment has taken a toll on young Americans’ employment prospects, paychecks, and ultimately their earnings for years to come. Unemployment and underemployment rates for young Americans remain dangerously high, and almost 60 percent of employed young people say they would like to work more hours. At the same time, there is also a clear wage pay gap, gender pay gap, and education pay gap.
All sorts of big life decisions are postponed as well, especially within minority groups. Almost half have delayed purchasing a home, a third have delayed moving out on their own or starting a family and a quarter have delayed getting married.
Demos just released new comprehensive polling about the opinion of young adults. Politically the most interesting data point that stuck out for me is their finding that an overwhelmingly 68 percent of young people say it is harder for them to make ends meet now than it was four years ago. From the poll results:
