BOOM: Super Rich Americans Getting Younger and Multiplying… BUST: 86 Million Fear Maxing Out Credit Card

Super Rich Americans Are Getting Younger and Multiplying

(Bloomberg) — The rich are getting richer, and younger.

A survey of U.S. investors with $25 million or more finds their average age dropped by 11 years since 2014, to 47. These fabulously rich Americans, whose ranks have more than doubled since the depths of the Great Recession, are younger than less wealthy millionaires. The average age of those with at least a mere $1 million is 62, a number that hasn’t budged in years.

The finding suggests a “vast generational transfer of wealth” is “just beginning,” said George Walper Jr., president of the Spectrem Group, which conducted the study. The sample size was small—185 Americans with more than $25 million in net worth—but the findings are consistent with other economic research on the top 0.1 percent.

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Those over 65 hold more than a third of U.S. wealth, a number that hasn’t risen as quickly as the share of elderly Americans in the population, University of California Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman found in a 2016 paper. In fact the very wealthiest group of Americans “is actually getting younger.”

1 in 3 consumers fear they will max out a credit card

Rising interest rates and credit card balances from CNBC.

 

  • Over 1 in 3 people —or 86 million Americans — say they’re afraid they’ll max out their credit card when making a large purchase.

  • Still, most Americans continue to take on ever-increasing amounts of credit card debt.

Despite the dangers of high-interest loans, more consumers are testing the limits of plastic.

To that point, more than 1 in 3 people —or 86 million Americans — said they’re afraid they’ll max out their credit card when making a large purchase, according to a new WalletHub credit cards survey. (Most of those polled considered a large purchase as anything over $100.)

“Maxing out your card essentially means you are over-utilizing your credit,” said Jill Gonzalez, an analyst at WalletHub.

 

No Pay Stub? No Problem. Unconventional Mortgages Make Comeback…

 

Aryanna Hering didn’t have pay stubs or tax forms to document her income when she shopped around for a mortgage last year—a problem that made it tough for her to get a loan.

But the nursing student who works part time providing home care for children and the elderly eventually hit pay dirt: For a roughly $610,000 home loan, a mortgage company let her verify her earnings with 12 months of bank statements and letters from clients.

Ms. Hering’s case highlights how a flavor of mortgage once panned for its role in the housing meltdown a decade ago is making a comeback. These loans, aimed at buyers with unusual circumstances such as those who can’t provide the standard proofs of income, are growing rapidly even as rising interest rates and higher home prices crimp demand for mortgages.

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