Eighteen- to 24-year-olds have an average $2,985 in credit card debt, according to last year's Demos USA study, "Generation Broke." The average plastic debt for 25- to 34-year-olds is $4,088.

People ages 45 to 59 are the most likely to refinance, according to Demos, a nonprofit public-policy organization in New York City. The real estate bubble will eventually burst, says Cary Silvers, vice president of New York City--based GfK NOP, a market-research company that in 2004 gathered

Demos's senior research associate and author of A House of Cards: Refinancing the American Dream, Javier Silva, said that, even in the absence of a real estate crash, many families "are facing a financial crisis," partially because they've taken on more mortgage debt. As more and more people have

Javier Silva of Demos, a New York-based think tank, yesterday opposed any change. Raising the limit would extend a dangerous trend of loosening lending standards to enable consumers to buy homes they can't truly afford, Silva said. "The answer is to find ways to lower home prices, not simply raise

The study revealed some startling results that suggest a college education has become unaffordable to many young adults. For example, more students are taking on debt to finance their college education because of a shift in federal student aid programs. In 1980, the most common form of college

According to Demos, a New York-based research group, young Americans have the second-highest rate of bankruptcy - topped only by 35- to 44-year-olds. Demos says financial troubles often start when students leave college with credit card debt and student loans that already are unwieldy. According to

As Javier Silva, senior research associate at Demos, a research and advocacy group, explained: "Prices have gone up so high that a lot of people can't afford to get into the market - so lenders have responded with these products," he said, stressing the popular loan world euphemism.

Demos concludes that any meaningful attempt to explain the widening debt gap between Latino and African-American families and their white counterparts must take into account the larger social, cultural and economic forces driving credit card debt. According to New York-based Demos, between 1998 and

Over the past decade, credit card debt among 18-24 year olds rose by 104 percent according to a report released by the nonprofit research organization Demos entitled "Generation Broke: The Growth of Debt Among Young Americans." Although over a third of young adults own credit cards, young people

New York, NY — African-American and Hispanic households are at greater financial risk and more likely to be in credit card debt than their white counterparts, according to a new report, Costly Credit: African Americans and Latinos in Debt, released today by the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos