Indicators

103 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 2.7%, still low by historical standards

Could Handle a $1,000 Emergency With Savings

Down from 44.0% 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

6.0% in 2025, compared with 4.8% in December 2024 and 2.3% in 2019

Households Spending Nearly All Their 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

11.2% 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 50.5% 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 20.9% annually at the current average rate

Auto Loans 90+ Days Past Due

5.6% of auto loan balances are seriously overdue — three or more missed payments, repossession territory

Student Loans 90+ Days Delinquent

10.3% 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

$18.79T Q1 2026

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

Latest reported observation from Equifax Monthly Press Release.

Student Loan Borrowers Behind on Payments or in Collections

20.0% of adults with outstanding student loans for their own education were behind on payments or in collections in 2024, compared with 16.0% in December 2023

Housing

8 indicators

Mortgage stress, foreclosures, and housing affordability

FHA Mortgage Delinquency (MBA)

Government-backed loans running at multiples of the bank-booked mortgage 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

3.4% of all consumer loan balances are three or more months behind — the stage where delinquency hardens into default

Foreclosure Filings, Year-Over-Year Change

Latest reported observation from ATTOM Data Solutions.

Median Sale Price of Existing Homes

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

$410,700 Q2 2026

Foreclosure Starts-to-Completions Ratio

ATTOM starts-to-completions ratio; the comparison does not establish the outstanding foreclosure inventory

First Missed Mortgage Payment Rate

Back down after a brief uptick; early-stage mortgage trouble remains low by historical standards

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

197,000 workers filed for unemployment for the first time — a real-time weekly pulse on layoffs nationwide

197,000 Jul 25, 2026

People Still Collecting Unemployment

1,782,000 Americans receiving ongoing unemployment benefits — measures how long people stay jobless

1,782,000 Jul 18, 2026

Announced Job Cuts (Challenger Report)

Latest reported observation from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Workers Voluntarily Quitting Their Jobs

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

Official Unemployment Rate

4.2% of the labor force is actively looking for work and can't find it — the headline number everyone watches

Unemployment + Underemployment Rate

7.9% 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

158,984 Jun 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

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

102.09 Jul 24, 2026

WARN Act Layoff Notices (Historical)

Retained national series through June 2026. Automated collection is parked pending a verified machine-readable replacement source.

21,806 Last verified Jun 2026

Prices

14 indicators

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

Overall Inflation Rate (Year-Over-Year)

Latest reported observation from BLS via FRED.

Grocery Price Inflation (Year-Over-Year)

Latest reported observation from BLS.

Car Insurance Price Inflation

Latest reported observation from BLS.

Healthcare Cost Inflation

Latest reported observation from BLS.

Energy Price Inflation

Latest reported observation from BLS.

15.45% Jun 2026

How Much Groceries Have Risen Since 2020

Cumulative grocery price increase of 32% since Jan 2020 — the price level remains elevated even when annual inflation slows

Housing Cost Inflation (Rent + Owners' Equivalent)

Latest reported observation from BLS.

Year-Over-Year Change in Prescription Drug Prices

Latest reported observation from BLS.

How Much Faster Medical Costs Rise Than Overall Prices

Medical CPI measured against the overall CPI — currently -1.4 points — after decades in which medical inflation outpaced the headline rate

-1.44 pts Jun 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 3.6 points — a line on the cost of driving the headline number hides

3.57 pts Jun 2026

How Much Faster Wages Grow Than Food Prices

Average hourly earnings growth measured against Food CPI — 0.5 points as of June 2026

0.53 pts Jun 2026

Share of Disposable Income Consumed by Energy

Household energy spending eats 3.7% of disposable income — off the 4.7% 2022 shock-era high but stuck above recent pre-pandemic lows

Federal Customs Duties Relative to Disposable Income

Federal customs duties equaled 1.2% of aggregate disposable personal income in 2025 — 3.0× the prior annual share

Courts

8 indicators

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

Consumer Bankruptcy Filings (Year-Over-Year Change)

Latest reported observation from Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Chapter 7-to-Chapter 13 Filing Ratio

1.8 Chapter 7 filings for each Chapter 13 filing in the rolling-year totals for Q2 2026

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)

Latest reported observation from Computed from Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts Table F-2.

Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Filings (Year-Over-Year Change)

Latest reported observation from Computed from Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts Table F-2.

Consumer Financial Complaints Filed With the Government

664,568 complaints about banks, lenders, and debt collectors filed with the CFPB — a proxy for how often people feel cheated

664,568 Jun 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 — 44.8 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

-0.38 Jul 24, 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 — 0.8 points — the simplest test of whether work is paying off

0.84 pts Jun 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)

37,011,096 people enrolled in SNAP in April 2026

37,011,096 Apr 2026

Gap Between Low-Income and High-Income Spending Growth

Top-quartile minus bottom-quartile spending growth sits at -9.3 points

-9.3 pts May 2026

Who's Hurting

8 indicators

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

Adults Having Trouble Paying Usual Household Expenses

Latest reported observation from Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey.

22.8% Mar 30, 2026

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 and roughly half its 8.2% level 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

Down from 18.3% a year ago, skipping bills to make ends meet

Americans Who Can't Reliably Afford Enough Food

Not statistically different from the 13.5% a year earlier

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

Latest reported observation from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Tech Sector Job Postings

76.0k 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

Monthly month-end share of U.S. postings that mention AI from

The Deal

12 indicators

Pay, job security, bargaining power, and how the gains get divided — the inputs to the American Worker Index

Real Production & Nonsupervisory Wage

The non-manager earns $9.7 an hour in constant 1982-84 dollars

Real Median Weekly Earnings

The typical full-time check is $378 in constant 1982-84 dollars

Productivity-Pay Wedge

The wedge reads 108.5 — output per hour running ahead of pay

Long-Term Unemployed Share (27+ Weeks)

27.3% of the jobless have been out of work six months or more

Involuntary Part-Time Share of Employment

2.9% of workers are stuck part-time because full-time work is scarce

Union Membership Rate

9.9% of workers carry a union card, down from about a third of the workforce in the 1950s

Labor Share of Nonfarm Business Income

BLS index at 95 — labor's cut of what business produces, down since around 2000

Family Income Inequality (Gini)

The family income Gini reads 0.5, and it has widened since the late 1960s

Bottom-Half Share of Household Wealth

The bottom 50 percent of families holds 2.5% of all household wealth

Prime-Age Employment Rate (25-54)

80.2% of adults 25 to 54 are employed

Multiple Jobholders Share of Employment

5.3% of workers are holding down more than one job

Real Federal Minimum Wage

The federal minimum wage is worth $2.2 an hour in constant 1982-84 dollars

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