Remember, according to Biden, the economy is now doing great!
As Biden touts US economy, Americans struggling to make car payments
As President Biden touts the state of the U.S. economy under his stewardship, a striking number of Americans with auto loans are struggling to make their monthly payments.
The juxtaposition between Biden’s rhetoric and the harsh economic realities for many people highlights what’s become a constant thorn in the president’s side: high inflation, which continues to eat away at household income, and public opinion disapproving of his handling of the economy.
Car loans are the latest sign of such economic problems. Indeed, loans delinquent by more than two months increased by 5.3% in December compared to the prior month and skyrocketed by 26.7% from a year ago, according to recently released data from Cox Automotive.
Of all December loans, 1.84% were severely delinquent (generally defined as more than 90 days behind on payments), marking an increase from 1.74% in November and the highest rate since February 2009, when the financial crisis crippled the the U.S. economy.
Part of the problem is that people’s car payments are higher than they usually would have been. For new cars, most dealers have been charging a “market adjustment”, anywhere from $1,000-$3,000 above MSRP (I had one guy from Virginia call to place an order because the dealer wanted to charge $6K above sticker). For used, people have been paying way, way above what should have been normal, sometimes more than a new car (in Jan of 2021, one used dealer had a 2022 with 1K miles that was $6,073 above MSRP).
Then you start adding in the higher interest rates over the last 9 months. Which is causing people to say “no” on those too high used cars.
New figures showing people not making their car payments come as Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and not being able to afford basic necessities.
About 72% of middle-income families say their earnings are falling behind the cost of living, according to a quarterly survey from Primeric report. A similar number, 74%, said they’re unable to save for their future. Both figures are up from a year ago. (snip)
“As inflation is coming down, take-home pay for workers is going up,” Biden said in remarks on the economy earlier this month. “Workers’ wages are higher now than they were seven months ago, adjusted for inflation. Wages for lower-income and middle-income workers have gone up even more. It all adds up to a real break for consumers, real breathing room for families, and more proof that my economic plan is working.”
The thing is, inflation is slowly slowing, not coming down. Prices are still up, and still going up. Pay is not going up to account for this. Biden is just gaslighting. As usual.
For several months, polling has consistently shown a majority of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of inflation and the overall economy more broadly.
A new ABC News/Ipsos poll, for example, shows just 31% of the country approves of his handling of inflation and only 38% likes how he’s tackled the economy.
Fortunately, when prices go down, that’s due to Biden, when they go up, it’s Other Things
Reporter: “Gas prices are now up … The President took credit for the prices going down … Does the President get credit for the price of gas going up?”
Biden’s energy sec: “It’s obviously based upon international and climate events.”
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) January 23, 2023
I filled up at a gas station on way back from gym a month ago and it was under $3. It was up to $3.29 on Sunday. LGB!
# of loan defaults, or in “Journalist language”, “a striking number of Americans with auto loans are struggling to make their monthly payments”, if very likely related strongly to the end of COVID era payments to displaced workers and salary guarantees. Tax preparers are also signaling reduced “returns” because of end of COVID era earned income tax credits. Reguardless of hating Trump or Biden, it is just a fact of economic life that the end of trillions of dollars in spending is going to show up in people not paying back loans.
Weeeeee. With democommies everything’s free except freedom. That’s a privilege reserved for White liberals. The rest of us will own nothing and like it.
None of my business but anyone paying above MSRP deserves what they get.
Or, stupid is as stupid does.
A month ago I was at my dealer having my car serviced. Just for grins I asked a sales person to figure out the payments on a new truck…
$940……
Oh oh Oooo and you can bet this won’t be the last of it. This is exactly what lead up to the 07/08 crash. Gas was at %5.00 a gallon and the FED was raising interest rates, thus people stopped paying their mortgages because they had to make the decision to either pay for gas to get to work and to eat or make their higher interest rate mortgage payments. Those non-paid “Toxic Loans” are what caused the crash, because the tranches they were placed into and valued as AAA turned out to be valueless as “C” grade investment vehicles.
When it was recognized that those toxic loans were going belly up the tranche collapse started, and whoever bought those toxic investments went down the tubes as the banking sector also started to collapse and cause an emergency financial restructuring for the bailouts.
What appears to be our problem this time, is that the FED has run out of tricks to solve the problem it started. There is now no money left to bail out anything including what banks may go under this time. When you understand that the banks are tasked with paying off their derivatives exposure FIRST we’ll be left high and dry as the banking sector has decided their only way out is a “BAIL-IN”, which means the banks will steal your money to secure their debt with your savings deposits.
This is not a joke, so if you have the time, get your money out of the banks and put them in credit unions which are not as exposed to derivatives as are the banks. We are now at exactly that same spot as we were in 2007 because the idiot morons running our government have no understanding of our history which was a mere fifteen years ago.
No Teach you are wrong again
Inflation is going down. After reaching 9.1% last summer R
when gas was 5$ it has now fallen to 6.5%.
I expect it to be 6% next.
Gas prices fell because the world market price for gas fell, not because more oil was produced here in the USA. We also are short on refining capacity. No one wants to build a new refinery when gasoline use in USA may have peaked
Trump allowed the biggest refinery in the USA to be sold to the Saudis.
17% of all cars sold in the USA last year were either EVs (6%) or hybrids, because no one wants battery powered cars. I expect in 2023 that EV sales will again increase by nearly 50% to 9%, again, because Americans don’t want EVs
I was in a sandwich shop yesterday in Springfield, MO, and there were two gentlemen in front of me; one getting their lunch while the other was on the phone with a client who, within a few minutes, became clear was someone hiring these two gentlemen to repo a vehicle for his business, which was likely a car sales company. Based on the conversation, the gentleman who owned the repo business was hired on the spot for the job.
Tough times we’re in, but people are going to have to learn to finally live within their means.
That’s what happens when you buy a car you can’t afford, or pay more for a used car than a new one costs. Duh? I don’t feel sorry for any of you.
Our esteemed host quoted:
The December inflation rate was 6.5%, which is down from the 7.3% in November. However, average hourly earnings in December were up only 4.6%. A Democrat lawyer could parse that, and say that both clauses of the President’s statement were true, but in reality the average American worker is 1.9% poorer in real terms than he was in December of 2021.
The Washington Post just laid off twenty more newsroom employees, joining Vox, Twitter, Google, CNN, Meta (Facebook), and other media companies in cutting fat. All of a sudden it’s the people who know how to use the media that are being let go, as companies are anticipating a significant recession. Learning to code won’t help this time!
President Biden and his useful stooges in the credentialed media covered up the last recession — two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction, first and second quarters of 2022 — but they won’t be able to cover up this one.
With another recession coming up, the last thing that corporations will be doing is giving out raises — though January is a typical month for raises — and even if the inflation rate falls more, it will still outpace wage gains.
Dana,
Those are the official rates. Prices I see with my own eyes tell that the real rate is between 25 and 50 percent annual. Mcdonald’s no longer has a dollar menu. Their price of drinks went from $1 to $1.50. Double cheeseburgers went from $1.25 to $3.46. Those are just examples of the trend, not outliers. The government lies about everything and all the lies seem to be about supporting the Biden administration. As much as the Left hates Trump, they should appreciate that when he was president, all the Democrats working for the government hates him too so we got total transparency in government with an unending flow of leaks. Democrats used to care about transparency in goverenment.
With eggs hoovering at 15.00 for 18 in Texas and hamburger at 7.30 a pound I doubt inflation is 6.5 percent.
That is utter bullshit.
Gasoline is skyrocketing again and where I live it is now over 4 bucks a gallon again….NOW THAT THE ELECTION IS OVER AND BIDEN TURNED OFF THE STRATEGIC OIL SPICKET.
Meanwhile the LEFT and RIGHT in the US government is wearing I love UKRAINE LAPEL PINS as they vote to send them TANKS….RUSSIAN COMMENTATORS are already declaring it is WW3 so FIRE THE NUKES….SERIOUSLY…this is what they are saying on air in RUSSIA.
RUSSIA CONSIDERS THIS WW3.
Russia and Ukraine share a border. They are 12,000 miles away and the USA is obsessed with feeding Ukraine billions and billions of weapons SINCE THE FUKING WARS in the MIDEAST are GONE.
We are all SHEEPLE on both SIDES. We have no say. We elect people to represent us and then they vote to keep killing people 12,ooo miles away.
Always an agenda. In the rights case, it’s to feed the Military industrial complex. The left, is about crushing oil and food. Both sides vote for it. Turkey turns down Sweeden’s plea to join Nato. By the way Turkey is now getting their weapons from RUSSIA and not NATO.
INFLATION is a result of world events and supply side issues. The UNELECTED WORLD GOVERNMENT TOLD CHINA who offered the world a bone to go pound SAND. Why? No one wants the supply chain to reestablish itself. It is only going to get worse and worse and worse and we in America keep voting for people who are trying to destroy its own citizens way of life.
Give them the internet, a phone and a living wage and the democrats will rule for a 1000 years.
Dana,
Those are the official rates. Prices I see with my own eyes tell that the real rate is between 25 and 50 percent annual. Mcdonald’s no longer has a dollar menu. Their price of drinks went from $1 to $1.50. Double cheeseburgers went from $1.25 to $3.46. Those are just examples of the trend, not outliers. The government lies about everything and all the lies seem to be about supporting the Biden administration. As much as the Left hates Trump, they should appreciate that when he was president, all the Democrats working for the government hates him too so we got total transparency in government with an unending flow of leaks. Democrats used to care about transparency in goverenment.
We probably should have elected that guy who didn’t have money laundering going on in the Ukraine.