Demos has a new report up,
The Plastic Safety Net, based on its 2012 National Survey on Credit Card Debt of Low-and Middle-Income Households. Among the findings:
• In 2012, the average credit card debt totaled $7,145, down from $9,887 in the 2008 survey.
• 40 percent of households used credit cards to pay for basic living expenses such as rent or mortgage bills, groceries, utilities, or insurance, in the past year because they did not have enough money in their checking or savings accounts, a rate comparable to 2008.
• Nearly half of households carried debt from out of pocket medical expenses on their credit cards. The average amount of medical credit card debt was $1,678.
• 86 percent of households that incurred expenses because of unemployment in the past year took on credit card debt as a result.
• Among those who say they have poor credit, 55 percent say unpaid medical bills or medical debts contributed.
• Because of the 2009 Credit Card act, the number of households who report paying late fees on their credit cards has declined dramatically. In the 2008 survey, half of households reported accruing late fees; in 2012, it was 28 percent.
• Those who did make late payments were significantly less likely to see their interest rate increase as a result: 24 percent fewer households reported interest rates increasing as a result of a late payment in 2012 than in 2008.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2004:
Last Thursday, I watched in surprise as Sen. Mary Landreiu attacked her fellow Democrats. The ocassion was the New Democrat Network annual conference, and Landrieu hadn't gotten the message -- this was the new and improved NDN. The one that has ditched the DLC dinosaur and moved into the 21st century.
Landrieu was attacking Democrats for calling for the repeal of the No Child Left Behind law, while only reluctantly laying the blame squarely where it belonged -- on a Republican administration that had made a real mess of the law.
This was a vintage Democratic Leadership Council approach to intra-party disagreements -- turn the guns inward, attack internally. Without a doubt, the DLC is the most fundamentalist organization within the caucus, the most ideologically rigid, and the most destructive to the progressive cause. [...]
As for the DLC, it's time to euth[a]nize the organization. Whatever role it may have played is spent. As of now, it's the single most divisive Dem-affiliated organization, refusing to play nice with others even in these desperate ABB times. As such, it deserves nothing but exclusion and ridicule.
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