U.S. consumers have reached a breaking point
By newseditors // 2024-03-28
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Over the past several years, the cost of living has been rising significantly faster than paychecks have.  As a result, U.S. consumers have reached a breaking point.  Delinquency rates are spiking and bankruptcies have risen to a very dangerous level.  I have been hearing from so many people that are struggling to survive in this suffocating economic environment.  It has become increasingly difficult just to pay for the basics, and so many Americans have very little or no discretionary income to spend these days.  If you want evidence that this is having a major economic impact, just consider the fact that 1,000 dollar stores are going to be shut down.  If U.S. consumers were in good shape, that wouldn’t be happening. (Article republished from TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com) The economic shift that we have witnessed since the turn of the decade has been nothing short of epic. According to Zillow, the average monthly mortgage payment for Americans buying a home now is nearly double what it was in January 2020…
The real estate firm Zillow reports that since January 2020, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical U.S. home has nearly doubled. It’s up 96% in just four years. According to Zillow, a typical buyer will now pay nearly $2,200 a month, with a 10% down payment. Meaning, homeownership now costs well above the 30% of median income that was once thought to equate to “affordable” housing cost in America. And with the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hovering around seven percent right now, there’s not a whole lot of light at the end of this tunnel.
If home buyers have to shell out twice as much for their mortgage payments compared to four years ago, they are going to have a lot less money to spend on other things. And this is the primary reason why so many of our young people simply cannot afford to purchase a home right now. At this point, you need to earn approximately $106,000 a year in order to “afford the median home in the United States”…
“After the surge in home-buying demand and mobility during the pandemic, and the doubling of mortgage rates, home-shoppers now need to earn $106,000 to afford the median home in the United States,” said Divounguy. Back in 2020, the salary needed to afford the median monthly mortgage payment was just $59,000.
Of course it isn’t just housing that has become extremely unaffordable. For the first time I can ever remember, the cost of burgers has become a major national issue… I can’t imagine paying more than 20 dollars for a burger, fries and drink at a fast food restaurant. But this is life in America in 2024. Our leaders have created an inflationary nightmare. The Biden administration continues to insist that inflation is a low, but that is a lie. Another lie that we have been told is that the unemployment rate is low. How can that be possible when we just witnessed the worst February for layoffs since Challenger, Gray & Christmas started keeping records?… Read more at: TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
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