2019 Conference

Debt, famiy structure, survey of consumer finance, consumer wellbeing, credit access, financial difficulty

Unlike income, expenditure, and savings that are positively related with consumer economic wellbeing, debt is a unique factor. Debt related indicators can be desirable such as credit access or undesirable such as the heavy debt to income ratio and default in debt payment. Research on specific debts or family types is common but little research examined various types of debts and family types together over a long time period. The purpose of this study was to examine patterns and trends in debt related consumer economic wellbeing indicators such as debt holdings and debt burdens of American families over the past 27 years with data from ten triennial Surveys of Consumer Finances in 1989-2016. Results show that over the 27-year period, the holding rate of education loans increased the largest, while that of vehicle loans decreased. Two types of families had the highest portions that were single females with children and cohabiting couples with children are more likely to have financial difficulties measured by two debt related indicators.  There are other variations of presents patterns and trends of debt holdings and burdens among eight family structure types over the 27 years. These findings have implications for consumer policy makers and educators.