Ever since the pandemic hit the country, American finances have been stretched thin.
Now, with the dust finally settling after the pandemic, as well as the recent inflation, there have been some trends that have come to the forefront. Interestingly, despite the strain from the pandemic, homeownership stood at 65.9% by the end of 2022, according to a report from the Census Bureau. And this was quite surprising, considering how high the prices of houses reached the previous year. As it stands, the figure has been quite steady over the last few years, but it has gone down from its 2004 peak of 69.2%.
American Finances Have Been Hit Hard After The Pandemic
According to information from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Making Ends Meet survey, there were around 4 in 10 families in the country who didn’t have enough money to get through a single month, if they lost their primary income source. This implies that American finance has been hit hard enough that the population doesn’t have enough money in their bank accounts which would see them over in a financial emergency. It has also been highlighted that the total balance of consumer debt reached a whopping $16.9 trillion by the end of 2022- according to information provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The state of American finance has been so dire that the average credit card debt in the population stands at $5,805 per borrower. This does resonate with the data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York which had previously recorded a far higher credit card debt. The total credit card also increased by $61 billion to a sum of $986 billion in the last quarter of 2022.
