There are so many different types of ‘Don’t worry about it’-s in this world.
Sometimes it’s a gruff, but heartfelt stand in for ‘You’re welcome’.
Sometimes it means ‘You disappoint me yet again, and you will burn for your failures’.
When an economist says it, if you’re not already top 10%, it means ‘Panic, peasant’.
Despite unions continuing to get press from their wins and from their opposition’s efforts, wages have largely remained stagnant, or not risen enough to keep pace with inflation so bad it has its own Wikipedia article. So to ease the pain of price points, people looked to the original installment plan—credit card debt.
Lending Tree Analyst, Matt Shulz, told Fox Business “…life was expensive in 2023, and continues to be in 2024. So I’m sure that inflation and rising interest rates are playing a significant role. As prices rise, a lot of people lean on credit cards as a kind of de facto emergency fund.”
The increasing difficulty of fulfilling necessities and dignities has lead to record highs in both money owed, and delinquency on accounts. Despite an astronomical $1.08 trillion, up by $4.8 billion, in credit card debt racked up amongst mostly working class people, TD Economics’s McLeod “Rising delinquencies, while they do require monitoring, are not quite sounding alarm bells,” TD Economics’ McLeod wrote in their report, as quoted by Ken Sweet of AP News.
Despite this nonchalance, some monied entities are taking these shifts into consideration.
Sweet goes on to quote Discover CFO John Green as saying,
“Think about a consumer that makes $50,000 a year. When inflation outpaces your wage growth, they’re making choices in terms of what they’re going to spend, what bill they’re going to pay and what they’re going to frankly put on their table.”
As of time of writing, I myself have strictly only kept to taking on debt for education, medical necessity, and vehicle repairs—all of which were necessary to work, or more cynically, continue making someone else more money. Green’s statements may be indicative of us finally coming to a point where people at the top are realizing how much their finances might be impacted by the collective squeezes on people at the bottom.
I’m not holding my breath on that realization causing any positive change though. Mostly because air is still free, but also because financial relief for corporations (‘leaders’) is never too much to ask.
They can afford ‘Don’t worry about it’. Can we?
You can't spell "Together" without TGOT: That Goth Over There. Staff Writer, April Bingham, is that goth; and she's all about building bridges— both metaphorically between artistry and entrepreneurship, and literally with tools she probably shouldn't be allowed to learn how to use.
