Maybe the percentage is exaggerated, but I have no doubt that more people are having trouble keeping debt under control. I’ve hit a point where my debt is indefinitely growing, despite throwing every spare cent at my cards, and I’ve always been good with my debt. In the process of not using one of them, another gets piled on. Half of my pay goes to mortgage/utilities and the rest goes to my cards which are used for gas/groceries/dog food/emergencies. I’ve cut out everything I can at this point. My wife and I haven’t gone out to dinner in almost a year, no vacations, and I’m hesitant to even take a day off because I will only get 8 hours of pay, losing the overtime. All of this, and my card debt still goes up every month by about $50, which isnt a lot, but it’s unsettling that it’s at a point of steady increase. In a few years, at least one of my cards will be maxed or close to it. One emergency like my last (3k in car repairs) will immediately max one of them. The only other options I have at this point are giving up my dogs, or starving myself. The working class, even the responsible ones, are struggling.

Yeah, this isn’t a new development. The vast majority of the country is awful with money. Hell, there is a reason there is the meme of the lottery winner being broke just a few years after winning big, and it isn’t because they paid off their debt, invested in reliable sources, and continued to live similarish to how they were before.