The sickest part, realizing it's not going to change for the better. The people with an unhealthy willingness to put themselves into severe debt are everywhere....the whole situation seems to have come undone in a staggeringly short amount of time. Jonathan Smoke, the chief economist at Cox, told Bloomberg that the average new-car payment hovered around $400 a month for roughly a decade. But things began pitching up in 2019, with a brief reprieve at the start of the pandemic due to nobody leaving their homes to buy anything. Then feces made contact with the proverbial fan for consumers as we saw record-breaking prices month after month.
How is this even possible when the last couple of years represent the lowest sales volumes in over a decade? Easy. Automakers just started selling to people with more money or an unhealthy willingness to put themselves into severe debt. Based on data from JPMorgan, the average price for a new vehicle sold inside the U.S. has soared to almost $50,000. That represents a staggering 30 percent increase since 2019, which has been reflected in the overall profitability of automakers.
Americans are ready to start spending money to treat themselves — and 44% are willing to go into debt to do it, a report from CreditCards.com finds.
Millennials, ages 24-40, are most likely to take on more debt (59%) followed by Gen Zers, ages 18-24, coming in at 56%. Only 40% of Gen Xers, ages 41-56, and 32% of baby boomers, ages 57-75, said the same.
When it comes to what respondents are willing to incur charges for, car purchases and other automotive spending topped the list.
