{"id":19787,"date":"2011-03-02T20:00:29","date_gmt":"2011-03-03T00:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/?p=19787"},"modified":"2011-03-02T20:00:29","modified_gmt":"2011-03-03T00:00:29","slug":"new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"New Credit Card Data Is Just A Picture Of The Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is new data out about how Americans have been using their credit cards, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/03\/02\/business\/economy\/02debt.html?hpw=&amp;pagewanted=print\">according to the New York Times<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 It seems that consumers are spending more, which is good for the economy, but lower income consumers are starting to incur debt again.\u00a0\u00a0 People who were better off were doing a good job of managing their finances and keeping their debt in control.<\/p>\n<p>In this situation, what is good for the economy as a whole is not good for individual consumers.\u00a0 The economy as a whole benefits from increased spending.\u00a0 In the absence of real income growth, increased spending is based on revolving loans, largely from credit cards.\u00a0\u00a0 As someone who hopes the US economy improves, this is good news.\u00a0 As a consumer advocate, I really hate to see people getting deeper in debt with their credit cards.\u00a0 The article does show that there is more restraint in credit card spending than in years past.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cYou\u2019ve got people who already had good credit and were pretty much  managing their credit, and because of the risk, paid down their debt  even more,\u201d said Maxine Sweet, vice president for public education at  Experian. Then there were \u201cvery dramatic increases in debt by people  who, mainly, lost jobs, but also had medical emergencies, and turned to  credit cards to carry them through the hard times&#8230;&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8230;The cash shoppers, Ms. Sweet suggested, \u201cwere the ones that were pretty  much in control \u2014 they can say, \u2018I\u2019m going to be more conservative.\u2019\u00a0\u201d  People under more difficult circumstances had to put certain debts on  their credit cards, she said.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The article is so full of contradictions, that it is almost best to just dismiss the whole thing as a series of generalizations.\u00a0 The important thing for individuals to know is that the economy is improving, but slowly.\u00a0 Furthermore, we should not make the mistake of using our credit cards to leverage ourselves and go back into debt.\u00a0\u00a0 Spending based on credit might help the economy as a whole in the short term, but like always, it will be detrimental in the long term to both individuals and the economy as a whole.<em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is new data out about how Americans have been using their credit cards, according to the New York Times.\u00a0\u00a0 It seems that consumers are spending more, which is good for the economy, but lower income consumers are starting to incur debt again.\u00a0\u00a0 People who were better off were doing a good job of managing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.10 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>New Credit Card Data Is Just A Picture Of The Economy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Credit Card Data Is Just A Picture Of The Economy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There is new data out about how Americans have been using their credit cards, according to the New York Times.\u00a0\u00a0 It seems that consumers are spending more, which is good for the economy, but lower income consumers are starting to incur debt again.\u00a0\u00a0 People who were better off were doing a good job of managing [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Ask Mr Credit Card Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-03T00:00:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Steele\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jason Steele\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/\",\"name\":\"New Credit Card Data Is Just A Picture Of The Economy\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-03-03T00:00:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-03-03T00:00:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/18331587d05ff4eaeee29fd913227597\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"New Credit Card Data Is Just A Picture Of The Economy\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/\",\"name\":\"Ask Mr Credit Card Blog\",\"description\":\"Just another WordPress site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/18331587d05ff4eaeee29fd913227597\",\"name\":\"Jason Steele\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/author\/jsteele\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"New Credit Card Data Is Just A Picture Of The Economy","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"New Credit Card Data Is Just A Picture Of The Economy","og_description":"There is new data out about how Americans have been using their credit cards, according to the New York Times.\u00a0\u00a0 It seems that consumers are spending more, which is good for the economy, but lower income consumers are starting to incur debt again.\u00a0\u00a0 People who were better off were doing a good job of managing [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/","og_site_name":"Ask Mr Credit Card Blog","article_published_time":"2011-03-03T00:00:29+00:00","author":"Jason Steele","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jason Steele","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/","url":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/","name":"New Credit Card Data Is Just A Picture Of The Economy","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-03-03T00:00:29+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-03T00:00:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/18331587d05ff4eaeee29fd913227597"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/new-credit-card-data-is-just-a-picture-of-the-economy\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"New Credit Card Data Is Just A Picture Of The Economy"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/","name":"Ask Mr Credit Card Blog","description":"Just another WordPress site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/18331587d05ff4eaeee29fd913227597","name":"Jason Steele","url":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/author\/jsteele\/"}]}},"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}