Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This latest surge of debt seems to be mainly coming from California, Arizona, Nevada and other Western cities.
Shame on the residents of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania for being so fiscally conservative.
What a bunch of losers on debt in Michigan and Ohio for only having about half as much debt per-capita of California.
Californians, Arizonans and Nevadans collectively are taking out tremendous amounts of debt lately.
California and Arizona on per-capita are around the peak of 2008.
Arizona which is one of the poorest states per-capita has surged past the much-richer per-capita New Jersey on per-capita debt.
Amazing, how Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania residents collectively don't like participating in this debt circus.
Ohio and Michigan have similar per-capita incomes to Arizona but Arizonans on a per-capita basis have about 50% more debt.
A report from last year showed the the average household in Oxnard-Thousand Oaks and Vallejo-Fairfield metropolitan areas in California had triple the household debt per-capita of Bloomsberg-Berwick in Pennsylvania or Charleston in West Virginia.
Back in the 70-80's it was how to stretch your dollars with meals, how to cut back, etc.
Now...increase your credit limit, borrow from your 401K, use government handouts.
It seems these days it's all about how to keep spending like no tomorrow in spite of high inflation and to just ignore it and borrow more.
A report from last year showed the the average household in Oxnard-Thousand Oaks and Vallejo-Fairfield metropolitan areas in California had triple the household debt per-capita of Bloomsberg-Berwick in Pennsylvania or Charleston in West Virginia.
Mortgage debt is part of household debt.
Median home price in Thousand Oaks, CA is about one million dollars. Median home price in Charleston, WV is $130K. Of course if you live in a state with high home prices you have more household debt. And Arizona has had a huge increase in home prices the past few years. That adds to household debt. Its not a celebrity lifestyle, whatever that is.
And if the whole thing collapses, rich people will still be rich. Poor people will be even more screwed. And people will all say “hooray for capitalism!”
From the charts in the link, it's not celebrity lifestyles but mostly student loans and skyrocketing cost of living. A basic 2 bed, 1.5 condo with a basement office space near me was 300K in 2019. A comparable condo in the same complex now goes for $400,000 and would be over $3500 a month even with 20% down... and this is an hour and a half commute each way from the nearest big city. Looking at housing records, these condos (built in the 80s) have more than doubled in a decade. Even with a 75% salary increase during that time, the increased housing cost and interest rate make it unaffordable while, at the same time, my rent is going up an additional $200 a month (a total of almost $1000 a month since I moved in 2018). Because I want to have kids, spending 3-4 hours in the car every day won't be feasible, so something within an hour of work would be at least 600K.. and that's nothing extravagant or large. Even if people are dutifully down their mortgage and can afford the cost, the high price of entry is still debt that will increase the overall aggregate debt load.
Even places that used to be considered pretty affordable have dramatically increased. I considered a job in Miami a few years ago and was surprised by how affordable housing was. Now, rent rivals cities like Seattle where the average salary is much higher.
Colleges are out of control as well. In state tuition plus room and board is 33K in my state, and dorms tend to be cheaper than renting even with roommates. I received a full tuition scholarship and remember that final award letter my last year of college: $34K for tuition. Room and board was about $10,000. A little more than a decade later, tuition is $61K and room & board & fees bring it up to $79,500! For a few years, tuition went up 5% every year, meaning what you signed up for your freshman year was a lot less than it cost your senior year.
Last edited by charolastra00; 02-17-2023 at 12:58 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
