Americans are having an increasingly hard time making their credit card and car payments as Biden-era price increases and a worsening labor market have decimated their pocketbooks, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Nearly 10% of credit-card balances and 8% of auto loan balances became past due in the last year — the highest rate of credit card delinquencies the U.S. has seen in over a decade, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Executives at major lenders like Citigroup and Ally Financial have noted the trend, with Ally’s stock falling 18% last Tuesday after its Chief Financial Officer Russ Hutchinson reported the quantity of charge-offs — balances that the company wrote off because borrowers were unlikely to pay — was higher than expected in July and August, the WSJ reported.
“[Borrowers at Ally] have been struggling with the cost of living and now are struggling with an employment picture that’s worse,” Hutchinson told the WSJ.
The increase in unrepaid loans is expected to continue, with Bread Financial — a credit-card issuer that serves more lower-income borrowers than larger financial institutions — expecting the rate to remain elevated through the end of 2024, while fellow credit-card issuer Synchrony Financial said it is experiencing higher delinquency rates than before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the WSJ.
Prices have risen more than 20% since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, peaking at 9% in June 2022. Inflation sat at just 1.4% at the end of former President Donald Trump’s term. […]
— Read More: dailycallernewsfoundation.org
