ClearOne Advantage Blogs - Page 9

Debt has become ingrained in American culture. Today, few of us can imagine a car without payments, a house without a mortgage, or a college student without a loan. In addition to these debts, Americans are also carrying a significant amount of credit card debt.

Financial difficulties can be challenging. If you suddenly find yourself in a situation where you have bills to pay, without enough to cover them, then you understand financial hardship. Financial hardships occur when you lack the money to pay for your necessary expenses, and taking on debt or missing payments might seem like your only solution. Many Americans are facing hardship, so know that if you are in this position, you are not alone, and you don’t need to feel embarrassed. Instead, there are some steps you can take to help yourself out with this type of situation.

Getting laid off from your job or having your hours reduced can be stressful. That job was how you were able to provide for yourself and your family. It put a roof over your head and food on the table. When you lose your job, your income grinds to a halt. Unfortunately, the same can not be said about your expenses. There are still bills to pay, even when you aren’t making money. These bills can drain any savings you may have, leaving you in a desperate financial situation.

If you’re like many Americans, you probably know a thing or two about economic uncertainty. A recent study by the First National Bank of Omaha found that nearly half of all Americans expect to be living paycheck to paycheck throughout the coming year. And 53% of those surveyed said that they don’t have a rainy-day fund that would cover three months of their basic living expenses.

Toward the end of 2019, economic experts began noticing a new trend in household debt. That’s because the state of household debt experienced a dramatic upswing in 2019, according to a recent New York Federal Bank Study. The surge of household debt that happened in 2019 is the most significant annual increase we’ve seen since what we saw right before the last economic recession, during 2007. In 2007, we saw household debt increase to over a trillion dollars. Many of the statistics we’ll be using for this article come from the previously mentioned NY Federal Bank Study.