Seniors Face Growing Credit Card Debt Crisis
According to two recent studies, seniors are facing an alarming, and growing, debt crisis. A report from AARP’s Public Policy institute and Demos, a research organization, compared the amount of credit card debt held by different age groups. The report found that Americans over the age of 50 carried an average balance of $8,278, while those under the age of 50 had a comparatively lower average balance of $6,258. A second study, from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, found that the percentage of income that Americans over 75 spend on debt payments substantially increased from 4.5 percent to 7.1 percent in just three years between 2007 and 2010. Experts pinpoint medical expenses as one of the primary causes of the increased debt. To read the New York Times write-up on that issue, go to http://tinyurl.com/chc7snk.