Indicators

96 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

14 indicators

How much financial cushion American households have left

Personal Savings Rate

Share of after-tax income Americans are saving each month — at 3.5%, near the lowest level since 2007

Could Handle a $1,000 Emergency With Savings

41% — down from 44% a year ago; the rest borrow or skip it

Can't Cover a $400 Surprise Expense

37% — unchanged from a year ago; 1 in 3 adults still can't cover it with cash

Workers Raiding Their Retirement Savings

6.0% — up from 4.8% a year ago, triple the pre-pandemic rate. Sixth consecutive annual increase.

Households Spending 95%+ of Income on Bills

24.0% — up from 23.7% a year ago, almost nothing left after necessities

Buy Now Pay Later Debt Outstanding

$65.3B — 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

Total Monthly Obligations as Share of Income

Debt payments plus rent, auto leases, homeowner insurance, and property tax — broader than debt service alone

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

Revolving Credit Growth

Revolving credit has climbed 22% since 2019 to $1.33 trillion

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

13% — holding steady; 1 in 8 workers owe money back to their own 401(k)

Revolving Credit Utilization (75th Pct)

The most stretched borrowers are using more than half their available credit

Debt

15 indicators

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

Credit Card Delinquency Rate

Credit card delinquency rate at 3.0% — falling from 2024 highs but still elevated

Credit Card Charge-Off Rate

Banks are writing off credit card debt at the fastest pace since 2011

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 20.97% annually — the highest rate ever recorded

Auto Loans 90+ Days Past Due

5.21% of auto loan balances are seriously overdue — three or more missed payments, repossession territory

Student Loan Delinquency

Nearly 1 in 10 student loan borrowers is seriously delinquent

Consumer Loan Delinquency

Consumer loan delinquency still 50% above its 2021 floor

Credit Card Delinquency at Smaller Banks

Banks outside the top 100 show 6.62% delinquency vs. 2.94% overall — smaller banks serve riskier borrowers

All Household Debt in Any Stage of Past-Due

4.81% 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

Large vs Small Bank Delinquency Spread

Big banks carry 3.7 points more credit card delinquency than small banks

3.68 pts Q4 2025

TransUnion Subprime Originations

2.58% — up from 2.56% a year ago; subprime delinquency creeping back up

Equifax Monthly Credit Trends

3.03% — up from 2.91% last quarter; bankcard 60+ day delinquency still climbing

Auto Loan 90+ Day Delinquency (NY Fed)

Auto loan serious delinquency within 0.1 points of the GFC peak

ABA Consumer Discretionary Loan Delinquency Index

Data collection pending

Housing

9 indicators

Mortgage stress, foreclosures, and housing affordability

FHA-Insured Mortgages 30+ Days Past Due

11.52% — up from 11.03% a year ago, government-backed loans at 6.5x the conventional rate

Mortgage Delinquency (All Loans)

Mortgage delinquency is quiet at 1.8% — and that's the point

Serious Delinquency Rate (90+ Days)

Serious delinquency has doubled since the end of the stimulus era

Foreclosure Filings YoY

Foreclosure filings up 32.0% year-over-year

Median Home Price

Home prices down 8% from the 2022 peak but still 24% above pre-pandemic

$405,300 Q4 2025

Foreclosure Starts vs Completions

4.75 — down from 6.55 a year ago; the foreclosure pipeline is draining

CoreLogic Early-Stage Transitions

0.7% — 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

NMHC Rent Payment Tracker

Data collection pending

Jobs

13 indicators

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

Initial Jobless Claims

Weekly layoffs remain near historic lows at 210,000 — for now

207,000 Apr 11, 2026

Continuing Claims

1.8 million Americans are drawing ongoing unemployment benefits

1,818,000 Apr 4, 2026

Announced Job Cuts (Challenger Report)

108K — up from 50K a year ago; announced cuts more than doubled

Workers Voluntarily Quitting Their Jobs

Only 2% of workers quit in December — when people stop quitting, they don't think they can find something better

Unemployment Rate (U-3)

Unemployment has risen a full point from its 2023 low of 3.4%

U-6 Underemployment

Real underemployment is running at nearly double the headline rate

Nonfarm Payrolls

Record 158.5 million jobs — but the composition tells a different story

158,637 Mar 2026

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

4.9 million 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

Atlanta Fed Wage Growth (1st Quartile)

Wage growth for the lowest-paid workers has been cut in half since 2022

Indeed Job Postings Index

Job postings have flatlined at pre-pandemic levels after falling 37% from peak

101.44 Mar 2026

WARN Act Layoff Notices (Monthly)

Data collection pending

Census Household Pulse: Employment Loss

Data collection pending

Prices

15 indicators

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

CPI Inflation (All Items YoY)

Headline inflation at 2.7% — but cumulative prices are 20%+ above 2020

Food-at-Home CPI

Food inflation has reaccelerated to 3.3% after a year of cooling

Auto Insurance CPI

Auto insurance still running at 5.9% inflation — triple the pre-pandemic norm

Healthcare Cost Inflation

Medical care prices up 3.42% — doctor visits, hospital bills, prescription drugs, and health insurance

Energy prices flat year-over-year after two years of wild swings

11.32% Mar 2026

Grocery Prices Since 2020

Groceries cost 33% more than they did in January 2020

32.65% Mar 2026

Housing Cost Inflation (Rent + Owners' Equivalent)

The cost of keeping a roof over your head is rising 3.38% — the single biggest line item in most budgets

Student Loan Payment Burden

20.0% — up from 16.0% a year ago, one of every five dollars earned

Prescription Drug CPI

Prescription drug prices falling 0.7% year-over-year — a rare bright spot

Healthcare Inflation Premium

Healthcare costs outpacing overall inflation by a full percentage point

-0.13 pts Mar 2026

Gas Affordability Ratio

Gas Affordability Ratio at 0.76% — near pre-pandemic levels

Auto Insurance Inflation Premium

Car insurance premiums still rising 2.7pp faster than overall inflation

3.62 pts Mar 2026

Grocery Affordability Gap

Grocery wage cushion narrowed to +0.48pp — down from +1.5pp a year ago as food prices re-accelerate

0.38 pts Mar 2026

Energy Cost Burden

Household energy costs consume 3.4% of disposable income — down from the 4.7% peak in 2022

Household Tariff Burden

Tariff burden on U.S. households spiked to ~1.7% of income in 2025 — more than double the pre-trade-war level

Courts

8 indicators

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

Consumer Bankruptcy Filings

Bankruptcy filings up 20.0% year-over-year

Ratio of Total Wipeout to Repayment Plan Bankruptcies

1.72x more people choosing Chapter 7 liquidation over Chapter 13 repayment — means people can't even attempt to pay back

Bankruptcy Charge-Off Proxy

All-loan charge-offs have tripled since their 2021 floor

Foreclosure Charge-Off Proxy

Mortgage charge-offs at zero — a sign of how different this cycle is

Chapter 7 Filings YoY Change

20.1% — up from 8.3% a year ago, all qualifying debt erased because there's nothing left

Chapter 13 Filings YoY Change

10% — down from 19.5% a year ago; growth slowing as Chapter 7 surges instead

Consumer Financial Complaints Filed With the Government

554,392 complaints about banks, lenders, and debt collectors filed with the CFPB — a proxy for how often people feel cheated

616,117 Mar 2026

Utility Service Disconnections

Data collection pending

Warning Signs

8 indicators

Surveys and financial signals that have historically predicted trouble before it arrives

Consumer Confidence: How Americans Feel About Their Finances

University of Michigan survey — 56.4 is deeply pessimistic territory, below 60 has preceded every recession since 1980

Consumer Expectations for the Next 6 Months

72 — down from 72.9 a year ago, below the 80-point threshold that 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

SLOOS Credit Tightening

Banks have stopped tightening — the credit squeeze is pausing

Wage-CPI Spread

Wages finally outpacing inflation — but the gap is paper-thin at +1.2 points

0.48 pts Mar 2026

Google Trends Distress Keywords

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

SNAP Enrollment

41.7M — down from 42.2M a year ago; still 5 million above pre-pandemic levels

41,700,000 Sep 2024

Top vs Bottom Quartile Spending Gap

-9.9 pts — essentially unchanged; holiday spending vs. January reality

-9.9 pts Jun 2024

Who's Hurting

8 indicators

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

Households Spending 95%+ of Income on Bills

1 in 4 American households have almost nothing left after paying for necessities — no margin for anything going wrong

Financial Health Score

30% — unchanged from a year ago; nearly 1 in 3 in 'poor' financial health

Unbanked / Underbanked Rate

4.2% — down from 4.5% two years ago; a record low, halved from 8.2% in 2011

States with CC Delinquency Above 10%

36 — up from 29 a year ago, credit card trouble spreading geographically

Adults Skipping Bill Payments

18.5% — up from 16.7% a year ago, skipping bills to make ends meet

County Food Insecurity

13.5% — up from 12.8% a year ago, the worst reading since 2014

Medicaid Enrollment Changes

76.8M — down from 79M; unwinding pushing people off rolls, not into coverage

76,800,000 Sep 2025

Homelessness Count

771,480 — up from 653,104 a year ago; roughly the population of Seattle

AI & Work

6 indicators

Tracking AI's growing ability to do human work — and the jobs disappearing because of it

AI Adoption Rate (Census BTOS)

10.0% — up from 6.6% a year ago, nearly 3x the rate two years ago

How Quickly AI Is Learning to Do Human Work

719 hours — up from 60 hours a year ago; AI can now work autonomously for over 4 weeks

AI-Attributed Layoffs

8K — down from 31K last quarter; a category that didn't exist 3 years ago

Tech Job Openings

101K — down from 106K a year ago, down 53% from the 2022 peak

Youth Unemployment (16-24)

9.5% youth unemployment — the age group most exposed to AI displacement

AI Job Posting Share (% of Total)

Data collection pending

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If you're struggling with debt or facing foreclosure, free help is available. Find help near you · Browse the Glossary · The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provides HUD-approved housing counselors at no cost. You can also call 1-800-569-4287.