My Budget 360

America is literally driving itself into debt. US households now carry a stunning $1.34 trillion in automotive debt. What is troubling about this is the amount of driving taking place has plunged courtesy of Covid-19 and much of our economy is built around driving. People take the morning and evening commute, and this was seen as simply normal – but now with many working from home, that may not be the case. Also, the notion of buying cars (a depreciating asset) every few years is just a bad financial move. The buying would not be so bad but the level of debt being taken on to finance a car purchase is. Not too long ago a three- or four-year term on an auto loan was standard. Now we have loans of six to seven years! You also have billions of dollars going to subprime borrowers and in this climate, a large number of Americans are financially on the edge. Where do we go from here when it comes to auto debt?

Covid-19 continues to unleash economic havoc across the world. The financial destruction being caused by the pandemic is shattering already fragile household budgets. In the deep levels of this fog, Millennials continue to face extra layers of pressure from this crisis. This has come in the form of massive levels of student debt, a higher proportion of gig work and retail work, and ultimately no financial cushion of wealth. While some older generations have made it a sport to bash Millennials, they forget that many decades ago a one-income household was enough to purchase a home or that you could work a blue collar job and support a family. Today, blue collar work might keep the lights on but forget about buying a home in most large cities in the U.S. You also have the added layer of the cost of college. A generation ago, you could work summer jobs on a paper route and pay your way to school. Good luck doing that today when some colleges charge $60,000 a year just for a 4-year degree. Many Millennials are being caught in a two-recession trap.

While the pandemic has caused unrelenting and blistering damage in every segment of our economy, the pain is simply not distributed equally. Many of our essential workers are in the least secure jobs, with weak healthcare support, low wages, and ultimately are in jobs that keep them financially stuck while risking their health. What is troubling about this scenario is that we are seeing crony capitalism rearing its ugly head yet again – with the large bailouts we still do not have a clear picture as to where trillions of dollars went and we are devaluing actual work to support opaque networks of money. We do know that Millennials and younger Americans are getting pummeled once again in this crisis. Millennials shoulder a disproportionate amount of the more than $1.6 trillion in student debt, have lower home ownership rates than previous generations, and are also taking a big brunt of the job losses from this pandemic. Millennials never recovered from the Great Recession and this economic contraction is hitting them even harder.