The Wall Street Journal recently published a lengthy article calling attention to the growing indebtedness of people in the United States as a harbinger of a looming crisis. The article, authored by three WSJ reporters who cover consumer credit and other financial issues, characterized the growth in consumer debt as being driven by people striving to “stay in the middle class.”
The authors carefully detailed and illustrated the growth in consumer debt seen across the past three decades and provided an empathy evoking example of a young family using credit to make ends meet. But the premise of the article, which seems to want readers to wonder whether the growth in consumer debt is leading us toward the second coming of the Great Recession, is fundamentally flawed.
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