Credit Card Debt is Worse for Those Making $100K+

[amck12]

The article is a bit vague about the 2.5k or 5k+ owed on credit cards. At any given time I probably fit in either of these categories, but I always pay the statement balance. I don't care about the amount it reports unless I'm looking at getting a car loan or mortgage. So yes I have that balance, but I don't pay interest on it, quite the opposite, I earn points/cash at a higher rate than the standard bank savings account.... The article doesn't touch on that at all.....

I mean, could it be that people who have 100k+ net worth can afford to pay that amount of statement balance and don't care about the amount reported.....?

[Revelate]

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@amck12 wrote:

The article is a bit vague about the 2.5k or 5k+ owed on credit cards. At any given time I probably fit in either of these categories, but I always pay the statement balance. I don't care about the amount it reports unless I'm looking at getting a car loan or mortgage. So yes I have that balance, but I don't pay interest on it, quite the opposite, I earn points/cash at a higher rate than the standard bank savings account.... The article doesn't touch on that at all.....

I mean, could it be that people who have 100k+ net worth can afford to pay that amount of statement balance and don't care about the amount reported.....?

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It would be sloppy data if so.  

Usually the people who are looking at the bureau datasets understand there's a difference between revolvers vs. transactors and on some tradelines there's the ability to see that and it's pretty easy to extrapolate if someone is doing that on all the accounts which do report trended data, then they are on everything and just exclude that file.

That said to your point if they didn't control for that... I haven't ever cared about what my reported balances were, as a matter of fact I have gone out of my way in the past to report a high balance.  Lenders don't care month to month what the balances are, they understand not everyone is revolving those 5K balances either.  

Since pictures are worth a 1000 words: this was higher than usual credit card expenditure for me because I was being reimbursed for travel expenses (billed on personal cards) and also I claimed a bunch of deductions and as such made estimated tax payments from working two gigs... but I didn't pay a single cent in interest this year on any of my credit cards.  If I was one of the files looked at, no bueno from a data perspective.

Aggregate credit card balances nominally daily YTD.

[iced]

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@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:

It makes sense. People that make a lot of money are expected to look like they make a lot of money.  That means having the house, clothes, and cars. It's hard for people to believe someone makes over 100k if they drive a Toyota Corolla and shop at Walmart. When someone doesn't look the part, people don't have faith they can do the job.

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 This mindset is very prevalent and it’s 90% of what’s wrong with us as a society. The importance some place on appearances and status speaks volumes to a much deeper issue. Just because it’s common to think this way doesn’t make it appropriate or acceptable, but until people get past their self-worth being measured by their appearance of wealth, it’s a disease that won’t be cured any time soon.

Fortunately, there is a small but increasing population who gets it, though not always for the right reasons. Search for Stealth Wealth to see what I mean. These people have learned that having money doesn’t require them to display it.

The last sentence is rubbish. Wealth and competence aren’t related; look no further than a Kardashian for proof.