Chart of the day: Personal debt keeps growing
One out of three Americans has at least one debt in collections. That includes credit card debt, car loans, medical bills, unpaid parking tickets or even unpaid gym memberships.
The national debt comes up all the time in politics, but what the government owes might be less important to the economy than what people personally owe. Today, Americans owe more than $11 trillion worth of debt. Roughly $830 billion of that is delinquent, unpaid or in collections.
As a result, the U.S. debt industry employs more than 300,000 people. You can find out more about how growing personal debt is affecting Americans in the latest installment of our “How the Deck is Stacked” series.
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