INDIANAPOLIS — Jonathan Levine lives and works in Indianapolis, and he’s feeling the pinch on everyday essentials.
“It’s getting harder and harder,” Levine told Indiana’s I-Team.
Levine is also working to pay off credit card debt he started accruing after his salary decreased a few years ago.
“I’m in a job where I’m paid solely on commission, and I had in 2023 was just a bad year for me,” Levine said. “I went through my emergency savings just to make ends meet, and then I had to dip into my credit cards just to take care of things.”
Debt has impacted Levine financially and emotionally.
“I was extremely depressed, and it made my performance at work less effective too,” said Levine. “It affected everything: my marriage, my relationship with my daughter.”
Levine is not alone.
America’s debt crisis has reached a new and concerning milestone.
Money Management International, a national nonprofit, says more people are asking them for help than they’ve seen since 2011.
“The worst in about 15 years, and a lot of this has to do with the cumulative effects of high inflation and high interest rates,” Ted Rossman, principal consumer finance analyst at MMI, said.
The average unsecured debt among clients is $40,200, up 5 percent from last year.
“We’re talking about credit cards, personal loans, debt that’s not backed by an underlying asset,” Rossman said. “Things like a mortgage, a car loan, those tend to be secured debts. If you don’t pay them, they can repossess the asset.”
MMI says everyday expenses are eating into the savings families work hard to build up.
“We saw back in 2019, our average client made about $44,000 a year, and now our average client makes about $66,000 a year,” Rossman said. “The average income is up; it’s up close to 50 percent but debt loads are up even more. The average debt load is up 55 percent and it’s just this treadmill that people are running on.”
MMI works with credit card companies to drastically lower your interest rates.
“Don’t be ashamed of your debt,” Rossman said. “You don’t need great credit to work with us, you don’t need a super high income. The banks are willing to play along because we’ve been doing this for a long time, and it’s been proven to work.”
Jonathan Levine asked Money Management International for help in getting out of credit card debt, and he’s glad he did.
“I’m psyched, actually,” Levine said. “You have to be honest with yourself, and you have to recognize if you’re in debt, you can’t be going out to eat, you can’t be going on vacation.”
