66% of Millennials have nothing saved for retirement, one-third of American households can’t afford food, shelter or medical care

66% of Millennials have nothing saved for retirement

Most Millennials are not on track when it comes to saving for retirement.
That’s no surprise. After paying bills, rent and making student loan payments, there’s often not much leftover each month for young people, many of whom entered the workforce at a time of stagnant wages and high unemployment.
But a new report shows just how far off track they might be. About 66% of people between the ages of 21 and 32 have absolutely nothing saved for retirement, according to the National Institute on Retirement Security. The report is based on Census data collected in 2014.
“I see in practice that a lot of us are putting retirement down the goal priority list, in favor of paying off student debt or buying homes,” said Douglas Boneparth, a certified financial planner and author of The Millennial Money Fix.
Waiting to save could significantly delay retirement. You’ll be missing out on valuable years of compounding returns.

One-third of American households can’t afford food, shelter or medical care

A new survey shows how many families are on the edge financially
Nearly half of Americans have a tough time paying their bills, and over one-third have faced hardships such as running out of food, not being able to afford a place to live, or not having enough money to pay for medical treatment.
Those are some of the grim findings from the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s first-ever survey of financial well-being, released Tuesday.
The numbers parallel MarketWatch’s own State of the American Wallet dashboard, which tracks how Americans are faring financially with data that updates in real time.
The State of the American Wallet shows how Americans are saddled with mounting car loan and credit card debt and not saving enough money — even enough to cover emergency expenses. Meanwhile, people in the top 1% control a growing share of the nation’s wealth.

After Record Debt-Fuelled Splurge, US Credit Card Usage Post Sharp Slowdown

After a massive surge in consumer credit in the last three months of 2017, when October thru December saw a massive increase in revolving and non-revolving credit, amounting to a total $73 billion, the Fed reported that 2018 started off with a whimper, with a modest $701 million increase in credit card debt, coupled with a $13.2 billion increase in non-revolving, or auto and student loan, credit in the first month of the year.

Credit-Card Losses Surge at Small Banks

Small banks have been fighting for a bigger piece of the credit-card market in search of higher returns. Now, they’re contending with rising losses.
Missed payments on credit cards at small banks have risen sharply over the past year, a sign that their cardholders are taking on more debt than they can handle. Their charge-off rate, or the share of outstanding card balances written off as a loss after consumers failed to pay, hit 7.2% in the fourth quarter, up from 4.5% a year ago, according to Federal Reserve data.
Concerns have been mounting in the broader credit-card industry about the recent trend of rising delinquencies. While overall card losses are still relatively low—below the historical average of the last 30 years, for instance — they’ve been slowly climbing in the last two years.
But they’ve especially surged at smaller banks, those outside the 100 largest by assets that have less than around $10.4 billion in assets. There, the average charge-off rate is near an eight-year high, while the 3.5% loss rate at large banks remains well below the 10.6% seen in 2010.

 
Why American Collapse is Only Just Beginning (Not Ending)