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Are Americans in debt or just really poor these days.
Neither. Most Americans are not poor, but broke, because they suffer from a terrible sense of entitlement and simply have no concept of what "living within your means" means. Unfortunately, the the old saying "a fool and his money are soon parted" is alive, well and thriving in the US today.
It's both. Cost of healthcare, other insurance, groceries, and housing is through the roof. This makes it hard to get ahead. College costs are out of control and that's caused a lot of unavoidable debt.
However, there are also a lot of people I know in debt due to their own fault. People who think owning a home is a right and have houses they can't afford. People who buy toys like boats and RVs they can't afford even though those are often foolish purchase. Many parents are in debt due to structuring every hour of their kids' days. Traveling sports teams cost a fortune. Let's also not forget people who don't gave the money but continue to reproduce.
In short, a little of Column A and a little of Column B.
Most Americans are bankrupt financially physically and spiritually. A perfect storm. Healthcare which is really not a caring institution at all is a joke. It's meant to extract not provide anything but chemicals. Folks in my peer group have been decimated by obesity and it's effects. Diabetes, heart disease, joint replacement are commonplace among them.
There children are even obese. Most have spoiled there children so much it is pathetic. Lazy kids who spend entire times playing video games then go off to college and get some stupid degree that is worthless in this society. The college paradigm has been over for years.
Look at housing. They don't even use real wood anymore. It's all built with glued wood except the frame. everything is the cheapest possible. it looks good though but inside a piece of junk. All expensive. I could go on for days but the most important would be the lack of critical thinking by most folks. Everyone defers to the experts for everything.
America has been over run without a single shot fired.
Almost everyone is in debt. It's not news nor should it be a surprise. However, that doesn't mean that everyone has a negative net worth. Even the wealthiest take on debt.
There's a difference between 'good debt' i.e. home mortgage or real estate investments for the wealthy (in most cases) vs. 'bad debt' (credit cards, car loans and so on which I believe OP is referencing).
Generally speaking, debt (and the mentality behind it) is what makes people poor.
People's are no longer workers. They are consumers. Actually polluters. And consume and create trash they do. We are conditioned by the ultra-rich to consume/pollute ourselves into lifelong debt so that they can get rich.
As others said, having debt is not necessarily a bad thing. I owe money on our primary home and some land we own as well. But our total assets are positive, even though our mortgage debt is over $500k.
The personal debt per citizen (not per household, but per citizen) is just over 63k. The median income is just under 34k. America is a broke nation, for all intents and purposes. And that's not even adding in the roughly $150T-$160T of government debt and liabilities that we're all on the hook for.
I make a very average salary, but i don't have a single red cent of debt, and that's why i consider myself far better off financially than most Americans. I don't even want a mortgage. If i purchase a house, it will be outright with no borrowing.
That is probably mostly mortgages - mixing good long term with other debts makes it look worse. But they don't show their source so take what they post with a grain of salt, they appear to be mixing averages and medians. Just for example their savings per family is very off from actuality. The average savings per family is $183K according to Federal Reserve and $250K if exclude the 22% of households without any savings - not the $15K they are showing.
Do we know the percentage of Americans in debt like is it 15%, 20%, 30%, 40% or 70% of what ever it is?
How big of problem is it for people?
Sort of useless way to look at. I have about 4,000 left on student loans as my only debt. Five years ago it was about 40,000 between student loans and car loans. Either way I was in debt then and I'm in debt now. But that's really meaningless. You could add a 200 or 300k mortgage to those numbers and it would be as well.
Healthcare is the number one problem in the U.S that contributes to debt IMHO. We have "so called" good healthcare, yet I just received bills in the mail totaling $2k for various medical bills and it's only March. When families have to budget $10k a year extra for deductibles, it can hurt quite a few.
Most people I know have two income families and live within their means but still struggle to make ends meet, So how do you expect them to save for retirement?
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