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That much-repeated factoid is the result of sloppy, clickbait reporting of a lousy survey. People were asked "If you had a sudden $500 expense, how would you p
by floor2 4y ago
That much-repeated factoid is the result of sloppy, clickbait reporting of a lousy survey.
People were asked "If you had a sudden $500 expense, how would you pay for it?" with options like ["cash", "checking account", "credit card", "pay-day loan", "borrow from family"] and unsurprisingly many people said "credit card". This then got repeated and reported as "Americans can't pay $500 without going into debt".
- Rapzid 4y agoYeah, would like to see the source of that. My generation puts everything on rewards cards even if they have no debt; so of course $500 is going on a card first lol.
- quartesixte 4y agoOf course. Might as well turn it effectively into a $495 bill.
- dublinben 4y agoThat statistic originates from this report by the Federal Reserve from 2014.[0] In the report they define it as "paying for it entirely using cash, money currently in their checking/savings account, or on a credit card that they would pay in full at their next statement (referred to here as “cash or its functional equivalent”)." [0] https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2014-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201505.pdf https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2014-report-econo...