Indicators

92 indicators tracking what happens when household finances break down. Some measure how fast the buffer is disappearing. Others track what comes next — the delinquencies, the filings, the charge-offs. Each one is a single thread in the pattern the American Distress Index follows.

Savings

13 indicators

How much financial cushion American households have left

Personal Savings Rate

Share of after-tax income Americans are saving each month — at 2.6%, still low by historical standards

Could Handle a $1,000 Emergency With Savings

Down from 44% a year ago. The rest borrow or go without

Can't Cover a $400 Surprise Expense

Unchanged from a year ago; 1 in 3 adults still can't cover it with cash

Workers Raiding Their Retirement Savings

Up from 4.8% a year ago, triple the pre-pandemic rate. Sixth consecutive annual increase.

Households Spending 95%+ of Income on Bills

Up from 23.7% a year ago, almost nothing left after necessities

Buy Now Pay Later Debt Outstanding

Up from $54.6B a year ago, invisible to lenders and credit scores

Share of Income Going to Debt Payments

11.3% of disposable income now goes to mortgage, credit card, auto, and student loan payments — rising with interest rates

Share of Income Going to Mortgage Payments

Just the mortgage portion of household debt service — how much of your paycheck the house takes

Total Consumer Credit Owed (Excluding Mortgages)

All non-mortgage consumer debt: credit cards, auto loans, student loans, and personal loans combined

Credit Card and Revolving Debt Outstanding

Total balance on credit cards and other revolving accounts — does not include auto or student loans

Home Equity Lines of Credit Outstanding

How much homeowners have borrowed against their home equity — rising means people are tapping their houses

Workers With an Outstanding 401(k) Loan

Holding steady; 1 in 8 workers owe money back to their own 401(k)

Credit Card Utilization — Higher-Balance Borrowers

Borrowers at the 75th percentile are using 54% of their available credit — a sign of maxing out

Debt

14 indicators

Late payments, charge-offs, and total debt across credit cards, auto loans, student loans, and mortgages

Credit Card Balances Past Due

2.9% of credit card balances are delinquent — down from the 2024 reading but still above the 2.6% pre-pandemic norm

Credit Card Debt Banks Have Written Off as Losses

3.8% of credit card balances declared uncollectable — the bank gave up trying to collect

Credit Card Accounts 30+ Days Past Due

Share of credit card loan balances at least a month behind — as reported by all U.S. commercial banks

Average Interest Rate on Credit Cards

If you carry a balance, you're paying about 21% annually at the current average rate

Auto Loans 90+ Days Past Due

5.2% of auto loan balances are seriously overdue — three or more missed payments, repossession territory

Student Loans 90+ Days Delinquent

9.6% of student loan balances are seriously delinquent — back near pre-pandemic levels within a year of the payment pause ending

Non-Card Consumer Loans 30+ Days Past Due

Personal loans, installment loans, and other consumer credit (not cards or auto) — the smaller debt types

Credit Card Delinquency at Smaller Banks

Banks outside the top 100 show 6.4% delinquency — well above the rate at the largest banks, because smaller banks serve riskier borrowers

All Household Debt in Any Stage of Past-Due

4.8% of all outstanding household debt — mortgages, cards, auto, student loans combined — is behind on payments

Total U.S. Household Debt

Every dollar Americans owe: mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, student loans, and HELOCs — $18.78 trillion

$18.78T Q4 2025

Gap Between Big Bank and Small Bank Delinquency

Large banks show 3.5 points higher credit card delinquency than small banks — the distress is concentrated at the biggest card issuers

3.51 pts Q1 2026

Subprime Share of New Auto and Card Originations

Up from 2.56% a year ago; subprime delinquency creeping back up

Credit Card Accounts 60+ Days Past Due

Up from 2.91% last quarter; bankcard 60+ day delinquency still climbing

Auto Loans Seriously Past Due (NY Fed Data)

Share of auto loan balances 90+ days overdue based on credit report data — a direct measure of who's about to lose their car

Housing

8 indicators

Mortgage stress, foreclosures, and housing affordability

FHA-Insured Mortgages 30+ Days Past Due

Government-backed loans running at multiples of the conventional rate

Mortgages 90+ Days Delinquent

1.9% of mortgage balances are seriously delinquent — historically low, and the quietest part of the distress picture

Mortgages 90+ Days Past Due

3.1% of all consumer loan balances are three or more months behind — the stage where delinquency hardens into default

Foreclosure Filings, Year-Over-Year Change

New foreclosure filings moved 32% vs. last year — default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions

Median Sale Price of Existing Homes

The middle sale price of homes sold — affects affordability and whether underwater homeowners can sell their way out

$403,200 Q1 2026

Foreclosure Starts-to-Completions Ratio

Down from 6.55 a year ago; the foreclosure pipeline is draining

First Missed Mortgage Payment Rate

Down from 0.8% a year ago; early-stage mortgage trouble easing slightly

New Mortgage Loans Issued

Dollar volume of new mortgages — when this drops, fewer people can afford to buy or refinance

Jobs

12 indicators

Weekly layoff filings, monthly job numbers, wage growth, and who's hiring

New Unemployment Filings This Week

229,000 workers filed for unemployment for the first time — a real-time weekly pulse on layoffs nationwide

229,000 Jun 6, 2026

People Still Collecting Unemployment

1,795,000 Americans receiving ongoing unemployment benefits — measures how long people stay jobless

1,795,000 May 30, 2026

Announced Job Cuts (Challenger Report)

97.0k in announced job cuts — Challenger's monthly tally

Workers Voluntarily Quitting Their Jobs

Only 1.9% of workers quit in April 2026 — when people stop quitting, they don't think they can find something better

Official Unemployment Rate

4.3% of the labor force is actively looking for work and can't find it — the headline number everyone watches

Unemployment + Underemployment Rate

8.1% when you add part-timers who want full-time work and discouraged workers who stopped looking entirely

Total Jobs in the U.S. Economy

Monthly count of how many jobs exist — when this number stops growing, trouble is starting

159,001 May 2026

Working Part-Time Because Full-Time Isn't Available

Millions of Americans want full-time hours but can only find part-time work

Are Wages Keeping Up With Prices?

Bottom-quartile wage growth minus CPI inflation — negative means the lowest-paid workers are losing purchasing power

Wage Growth for the Lowest-Paid Workers

Pay increases for the bottom 25% of earners — 3.6% growth doesn't help if inflation is higher

Job Postings Relative to Pre-Pandemic Levels

100.2 on an index where 100 = the Feb 2020 baseline — shows whether employers are still hiring

100.19 Jun 5, 2026

WARN Act Layoff Notices Filed This Month

Deferred indicator of federal mass-layoff notices employers are legally required to file 60 days ahead — a direct preview of layoffs that have not yet happened

39,118 May 2026

Prices

15 indicators

How fast groceries, rent, gas, and healthcare are getting more expensive

Overall Inflation Rate (Year-Over-Year)

Prices across the entire economy are 4.2% higher than a year ago — the broadest measure of inflation

Grocery Price Inflation (Year-Over-Year)

What you pay at the supermarket is rising 3.1% annually — one of the prices people feel every single week

Car Insurance Price Inflation

Auto insurance costs rising 6.1% year-over-year — mandatory expense pressure reaching household budgets

Healthcare Cost Inflation

Medical care prices moved 2.6% — doctor visits, hospital bills, prescription drugs, and health insurance

Energy Price Inflation

Gas, electricity, and utility costs — moved 23% year-over-year after near-flat 2025 readings

22.97% May 2026

How Much Groceries Have Risen Since 2020

Cumulative grocery price increase of 33.5% since Jan 2020 — even if inflation slows, the damage is already done

33.53% May 2026

Housing Cost Inflation (Rent + Owners' Equivalent)

The cost of keeping a roof over your head is rising 3.4% — the single biggest line item in most budgets

Student Loan Payments as Share of Discretionary Income

Up from 16.0% a year ago, one of every five dollars earned

Year-Over-Year Change in Prescription Drug Prices

Prescription drug prices are running at -2% year-over-year — a CPI category shaped by Medicare negotiation and generic substitution

-2.02% May 2026

How Much Faster Medical Costs Rise Than Overall Prices

Medical CPI is now running slightly below the overall CPI — a brief reprieve after years of medical inflation outpacing the headline rate

-1.57 pts May 2026

Share of Weekly Earnings It Takes to Buy a Gallon of Gas

Gas prices are consuming 1.1 percent of median weekly earnings per gallon, above the 2014 high and below the 2008 and 2022 shocks.

How Fast Car Insurance Is Outrunning Inflation

How fast auto insurance prices are moving against the broader CPI — currently 2 points — a line on the cost of driving the headline number hides

1.96 pts May 2026

How Much Faster Wages Grow Than Food Prices

Wages are running 0.4 points ahead of food-at-home inflation as of May 2026 — down sharply from the wider cushion of a year ago

0.37 pts May 2026

Share of Disposable Income Consumed by Energy

Household energy spending eats 3.4% of disposable income — off the 4.7% 2022 shock-era high but stuck above recent pre-pandemic lows

Household Share of Income Eaten by Tariffs

Estimated tariff cost hit 1.7% of disposable income in 2025 — 2.5× the 0.7% level that held from 2019 through 2024

Courts

8 indicators

Bankruptcy filings, consumer complaints, and what happens when people can't pay

Consumer Bankruptcy Filings (Year-Over-Year Change)

Bankruptcy filings moved 11.9% vs. last year — the legal system's count of who has formally given up

Ratio of Total Wipeout to Repayment Plan Bankruptcies

1.8x more people choosing Chapter 7 liquidation over Chapter 13 repayment — means people can't even attempt to pay back

All-Loan Charge-Off Rate

0.6% of all bank loan balances have been written off as uncollectable — well above the 2021 stimulus-era reading and still elevated

Mortgage Charge-Off Rate

0% of mortgage balances have been written off — essentially zero for years running, 100% below the GFC-era reading

"Start Over" Bankruptcies (Year-Over-Year Change)

Chapter 7 filings moved 15.3% — the option where all qualifying debt is erased because there's nothing left to repay

"Repayment Plan" Bankruptcies (Year-Over-Year Change)

Chapter 13 filings moved 6.3% — keep your assets but pay creditors over 3-5 years under court supervision

Consumer Financial Complaints Filed With the Government

662,917 complaints about banks, lenders, and debt collectors filed with the CFPB — a proxy for how often people feel cheated

662,917 May 2026

Residential Utility Disconnections

Data collection pending

Warning Signs

8 indicators

Surveys and financial signals that move before other stress measures

Consumer Confidence: How Americans Feel About Their Finances

University of Michigan survey — 49.8 is deeply pessimistic territory, below 60 has preceded every recession since 1980

Consumer Expectations for the Next Six Months

Below the 80-point threshold that has preceded every recession since 1967

Financial System Stress Level (Chicago Fed)

Measures how easily money flows through the system — negative means loose, positive means credit is getting harder to get

-0.39 Jun 5, 2026

Are Banks Making It Harder to Get a Loan?

Net percentage of U.S. banks tightening lending standards on consumer loans, reported quarterly by the Federal Reserve

Gap Between Wage Growth and Inflation

The gap between wage growth and inflation — -0.6 points — the simplest test of whether work is paying off

-0.58 pts Apr 2026

How Often Americans Search for Help With Bills

Up from 42 a year ago, what Americans are searching when they're in trouble

Americans Receiving Food Stamps (SNAP)

37,870,817 people enrolled in SNAP in February 2026

37,870,817 Feb 2026

Gap Between Low-Income and High-Income Spending Growth

Top-quartile minus bottom-quartile spending growth sits at -11.1 points

-11.1 pts Apr 2026

Who's Hurting

8 indicators

Food stamps, homelessness, and the demographics of who's falling through the cracks

Households Having Trouble Paying Usual Expenses

37.1% of households report difficulty covering the usual bills — a reading that has barely moved in four years

37.1% Sep 16, 2024

Share of Americans in "Poor" Financial Health

Unchanged from a year ago; nearly 1 in 3 in 'poor' financial health

Americans Without a Full Bank Account

Down from 4.5% two years ago; a record low, halved from 8.2% in 2011

States Where Credit Card Delinquency Has Passed 10%

Up from 29 a year ago, credit card trouble spreading geographically

Adults Who Skipped a Bill Payment in the Past Quarter

Up from 16.7% a year ago, skipping bills to make ends meet

Americans Who Can't Reliably Afford Enough Food

Up from 12.8% a year ago, the worst reading since 2014

Americans Enrolled in Medicaid

Down from 79M; unwinding pushing people off rolls, not into coverage

76,800,000 Sep 2025

Americans Experiencing Homelessness

Up from 653,104 a year ago; roughly the population of Seattle

AI & Work

6 indicators

AI capability, AI-linked layoffs, and labor-market exposure

Businesses Using AI in Their Operations

Up from 6.6% a year ago, nearly 3x the rate two years ago

How Quickly AI Is Learning to Do Human Work

Doubling roughly every four months since 2023; AI can now autonomously complete tasks worth months of human work

1,044.8 Apr 2026

Job Cuts Where Companies Cited AI as a Reason

38.6k in AI-attributed job cuts — a category Challenger began tracking in 2023

Tech Sector Job Postings

87.0k tech sector job openings — tech hiring has not recovered

Unemployment Rate for Young Workers (16-24)

Young workers are the first to lose hours and last to get hired — this group gets hit first when the economy turns

Share of Job Postings Mentioning AI Skills

Deferred indicator tracking what percentage of U.S. job ads require AI skills — a direct signal of how fast employers are rewriting job descriptions

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