I guess a lot hinges on the elasticity of 'struggle' here. Having adequate credit, and being able to pay that off within a month, with zero impact on your abil

I guess a lot hinges on the elasticity of 'struggle' here. Having adequate credit, and being able to pay that off within a month, with zero impact on your ability to pay other bills, doesn't sound like too much of a 'struggle' to me. Sure, people complain, it's inconvenient, some other discretionary expenditures will be clipped, you might pay some extra interest or late fees, boo-hoo. But it's not necessarily a symbol of notable hardship on either historical or international levels. (And if these people didn't have easy credit they're confident they could pay off: they'd have kept more hard cash around, like is common in other countries.) Just like there's a 'hedonic treadmill', where things that used to bring pleasure wear out from familiarity, there's "complaint inflation", in a generally rich & comfortable place like the USA, where whatever remaining nuisances exist become headline news, and get described in grandiose language previously reserved for deathly serious hardships. I'm sure something like 40% of Americans "struggle" to get out of bed some mornings. Or "struggle" to choose between a $400 and a $1200 smart phone. Or "can't even" achieve some imprecise euphemestic lifestyle goal like "making ends meet" or "the American Dream". It's mostly hyperbole.