Katherine Hamilton

speaker

654 appearances 14 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2024 last heard Jan 2025

Katherine Hamilton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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WSJ Your Money Briefing · America's Riskiest Borrowers Are Nursing a Financial Hangover · 6 Jan 2025 podcast

As those pandemic aids went away, a lot of people started feeling like they weren't able to save as much, and they also weren't able to keep up with their debts.

So especially for people who took on extra loans in 2021, when they were doing better financially, that really came back to bite them in the butt because they were not able to keep up with those new debts that they had taken on.

There was a really big jump that we saw during the first three years of the pandemic.

And more recently, that jump in credit score has leveled off.

So the average FICO score, which is a traditional credit score measure, jumped from 708 in 2020 to 718 in 2023.

So that was a record high 10-point increase.

And then this year, it actually ticked down one point, which is the first time it's done that in more than a decade.

There were a few different factors at play in 2021.

A lot of folks were actually doing better financially that year because there was more pandemic aid.

So the stimulus checks, a lot of people got tax credits that rolled out during the pandemic.

And also a lot of people were just spending less during the pandemic because they were staying at home.

And so we saw household incomes go up during that time.

And as a result, people were able to catch up on their debt and credit scores increased.

There were a few different factors.

Inflation during 2022 really went up and prices increased.

And also interest rates went up and made debt more expensive.

And then again, as those pandemic aids went away, a lot of people died.

started feeling like they weren't able to save as much and they also weren't able to keep up with their debts.

So especially for people who took on extra loans in 2021 when they were doing better financially, that really came back to bite them in the butt because they were not able to keep up with those new debts that they had taken on.

The groups most affected, generally speaking, are those with lower credit scores who are known as non-prime credit borrowers, people generally who are lower income, who maybe felt that rise in income more in 2021 and felt like they were doing a lot better, who are now coming back to earth.

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