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The Street
The Street
Ross Kohan

Americans are really anxious about their credit card debt

Transcript:

Conway Gittens: I’m Conway Gittens reporting from the New York Stock Exchange. Here’s what we’re watching on TheStreet today.

Stocks experienced a minor pull-back one day after the S&P 500 and the Dow set fresh record highs. Most of the angst came from semiconductors after somber comments from chip equipment maker ASML.

On the earnings calendar for Wednesday: Morgan Stanley and transportation company CSX.

Related: How to actually protect yourself from credit card fraud

In other news: Americans are feeling less anxious when it comes to job security, they’re less worried inflation will continue at breakneck speed, and they aren’t too concerned about their spending power -compared to the pre-pandemic days - but what they are worried about is credit card debt.

According to a survey released by the New York Federal Reserve, the number of Americans who live in fear of missing a credit card payment jumped to its highest since the early days of the pandemic. Those who think they might miss a minimum payment in the next 90 days rose to 14.2 percent in September from 13.6 percent in August.

There are two notable things which stand out. No.1, the age group most worried about missing a payment is the one in its peak earning years: 40 to 60 year olds. No 2, the income level where the worries have increased the most was on the high end: those with annual household incomes above $100,000.

Americans had $1.14 trillion in credit card debt to juggle as of the end of the second quarter.

Lenders have taken notice. Third-quarter results from the nation’s banks show the industry is stashing away even more cash to cover loans that could go bad - even though times are good - with a healthy labor market and interest rates on the decline.

That’ll do it for your Daily Briefing. From the New York Stock Exchange, I’m Conway Gittens with TheStreet.

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