return2ozmaWhy do Americans pretend they're not broke when most Americans are in debt?
talI mean, it depends on what you mean by that. Anyone who has a credit card is going to have debt, just by virtue of needing to pay the bill.
But if you mean “most Americans have a negative net worth” — taking into account assets and debts — most Americans have a positive net worth.
kiplinger.com/…/average-net-worth-by-age-how-do-y…
The median net worth of all Americans in 2022 was $192,900.
「黃家駒 Wong Ka Kui」 | (aka: 鳳凰院 凶真 Hououin Kyouma)Oops, dad got sick, time to sell the house
SoupBrickYou have a house?
undefinedRight? Who the fuck has a house?
ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠I do, but I bought it used.
I know you’re joking but I’d much rather buy a very used house than a house made today. At least in the US seems like houses from 20-40 years ago are solid but everything made in the last 5-10 years absolute paper mache dog shit.
I don’t, my parents do.
I call bullshit on that $192k average. They’re including people worth hundreds of billions in net worth which is going to skew the average way higher than it really is.
TIL that for my age bracket, apparently I suck.
Yeah, but if you were younger than 35 in 2022, your net worth was 39,000 USD. It was already brutal, since society expects people to own, or at least rent, homes in their twenties. Now, I haven’t heard about things shaping up for younger people (quite the contrary), Trump’s dollars are less biggy and the clocking bomb in the form of inflation, they all paint a gloomy picture.
$192,900
How much of an average house is that?
About ⅖
Credit cards don't have to mean debt if you pay them off before the intrest applies. That's how you use them responsibly. Many don't.
It’s debt regardless of whether or not one pays interest. Debt isn’t linked to interest. Just means that you have an obligation to pay money to someone.
EDIT: Though in fairness, if one never actually uses a credit card at all, then one never takes out debt, so I suppose it’s probably better to say “if one has a credit card that one uses”.
EDIT2: Though all this is not to diminish your point that not carrying credit card debt from month to month is generally a pretty good rule to live by.
Here in Australia if you have a credit card with a parenting balance of $0, and a maximum limit of $10k, that actually acts as $10k of debt when you go to take out any loans etc.
I’d be interested to see the median net worth after removing the top 1%, but I can’t be bothered to Google it atm …
It’d have an effect, but not a large one — that’s why one uses median, rather than mean.