Summary
Gen Z is increasingly relying on “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) services for holiday shopping, with spending projected to rise 11.4% this year, totaling $18.5 billion.
These services appeal to younger consumers with limited credit histories but can lead to overextension, as they lack centralized reporting and encourage overspending.
Experts warn of accumulating fees, particularly when BNPL plans are tied to credit cards.
With inflation and rising credit card debt already burdening Gen Z, consumer advocates caution that these services may worsen financial instability despite their convenience.
I don’t think their comment was about shaming individuals, but rather pointing out that there are individual level factors that economists don’t take into account when measuring economic health.
Systemic issues can only be solved with systemic changes.
Blaming any individual for their outcome in a system that creates these issues distracts people from the cause of the issues, wealth inequality.
That’s why choosing to obsess over individual choices is totally useless and literal propaganda keeping people from correctly focusing their frustrations
Its not even ‘individial factors’ in the sense that everyone faces unique situations that are not captured by data.
These credit / debt amounts are obviously captured by credit agencies, banks, etc., sold off to data brokers, either anonymized or not.
How else would any credit check occur?
A BLS economist could easily work these in to existing top line numbers, or make a new headline index.
Income Sans Recurring Debt Payments (car, house, consumer debt, student loans, etc)
Average
Median
Percentiles / Buckets / Brackets
Household/Individual
By Age
By Sex
By Location
By Gross Income
By Education Level
…etc.
The data is there. The math is not that hard (for an Economist or Data Scientist).
They just don’t.
It’s lieing by ommission.
I wonder if this research is done but not picked up by media.
I’m honestly not sure. I have the means to check but not the time-energy, unfortunately.
Maybe a few times a year a story makes it fairly mainstream in terms of internet news, but it almost never trends amongst popular streamers / youtubers / podcasts, or airs on TV.
Credit Karma or some other credit agency, or maybe some non profit or academic research will show up, as this article is…
… But the data obviously exists to be able to study and work into a new metric, which could be reported probably at a monthly pace, worst case, quarterly.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
The BLS does, I think? have some very rough aggregate stats on consumer debt levels, but nobody reports on it the way business news orgasms every time the jobs print and CPI come out…