Medical debt may still plague millions of American families, but the pandemic years brought a marked decline in the number of people struggling to cover their health costs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on January 17, 2023..
By the numbers: 10.5 million fewer people were in families having problems paying medical bills in 2021 than in 2019 - a 3.2 percentage point decline, according to National Health Interview Surveys.
Women were likelier to have problems paying medical bills, and the percentage of people in families struggling with bills was higher among those with children aged 0–17 years (11.5%) and adults ...
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Biden and DOE Propose Expansion to Student Loan IDRs
The Biden administration unveiled its proposed expansion of income-driven repayment (IDR) for student loans on Tuesday January 10, 2022. The proposal will slash monthly payments for most borrowers and dramatically increase the cost of the loan program.
Rather than creating an entirely new repayment plan, the administration intends to revise an existing IDR plan, known as REPAYE, to make it more generous. The following are the most significant changes:
The amount of income exempt from student loan payments will rise from 150% of the federal poverty line to 225%. For a single borrower in 2023, this threshold is $30,578.
For ...
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Non-Bank Lenders Feeling Squeeze of Rate Hikes
While consumer spending in the U.S. is still going strong, non-traditional consumer lending sources, such as finance companies, are scrambling to keep their doors open.
The financial squeeze that started about six months ago for non-bank companies that lend to ordinary Americans is getting worse, contrasting sharply with recent rallies in stocks and corporate bonds. The main reason: These finance companies have lost access to easy money.
Widespread economic uncertainty has made debt investors less willing to buy the bonds these nontraditional lenders issue. Higher interest rates, courtesy of the Federal Reserve, have given investors ...
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New Home Buyers May Already Be Under Water
Surging mortgage rates aren't just raising the cost of purchasing a new home. An alarming number of recent home buyers have discovered they already owe more on their property than it's worth, according to a new analysis.
Some 250,000 people who took out a mortgage this year to buy a home are now underwater, meaning they owe more on their loan than the home is worth, Black Knight, a mortgage software provider, found. Another million have less than 10% equity.
Those unlucky home buyers got caught in the crunch between historically high housing prices and rapidly rising mortgage rates, which in recent months have caused real estate values ...
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Error by DOE Contractor Causes Confusion on Student Loan Relief
Millions of student-loan borrowers will soon receive an updated email on the status of their debt relief.
In late November, approximately 9 million borrowers received an email from President Joe Biden's Education Department with a subject line that stated: "Your Student Loan Debt Relief Application Has Been Approved." However, that subject line was incorrect, Insider has learned — it was simply supposed to inform borrowers that their applications had been received with the subject line: "Update on Student Loan Debt Relief."
This error was made by Accenture Federal Services, a contractor of the Department of Education, While the content ...
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You Can Achieve High Earnings in This Market Without a Traditional College Degree
The tight labor market is prompting more employers to eliminate one of the biggest requirements for many higher-paying jobs: the need for a college degree.
Companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Delta Air Lines Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. have reduced educational requirements for certain positions and shifted hiring to focus more on skills and experience. Maryland this year cut college-degree requirements for many state jobs—leading to a surge in hiring—and incoming Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro campaigned on a similar initiative.
U.S. job postings requiring at least a bachelor’s degree were 41% in November, down ...
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Think Twice About Point-of-Sale Credit Card Offers
In the rush at the store checkout this holiday season, you may be tempted to say yes when asked if you want to apply for a store credit card — especially if you’re offered extra savings on that day’s purchase. It may help in the long run if you resist accepting an offer at checkout on the spur of the moment and instead dig deeper into the terms and conditions before signing up.
Soaring interest rates could mean you’ll ultimately pay more than you save from any perks a store brand offers. The average retail credit card charges a 26.72% annual percentage rate, with a high of 30.74% which measures how much it will cost per year if you carry ...
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Credit Card Applications Rise Despite Decreases in Other Forms of Credit
Americans’ appetite for credit cards grew this year, even as they shied away from other forms of credit, according to a new report from the New York Fed.
The NY Federal Reserve has reported that the application rate for credit cards increased to 27.1% in October 2022, up from 26.5% last year and above its pre-pandemic reading of 26.3% in February 2020. But application rates for mortgages, refinances, and auto loans fell during the same period.
The rise in credit card demand mirrors the growth in credit card balances over the past year, the New York Fed reported, and is expected to continue into 2023 even though credit card rates are ...
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Borrower Beware – More Uncertainty For Student Loan Relief in Bankruptcy
The Biden administration’s decision to make it easier to discharge student loans in bankruptcy could offer a new safety valve for debtors who have exhausted other options for getting out from under heavy debt loads, the Wall Street Journal reported on November 21, 2022.
The move, announced November 17, 2022, comes as President Biden’s broader plan for mass student-debt cancellation has been placed in limbo after being blocked by two separate Federal Courts. The proposed plan calls for canceling up to $20,000 in debt for borrowers under certain income thresholds. It would render up to 20 million people free of debt, around half of all ...
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FHFA to Change Credit Score Model for New Applicants
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that it will begin using new credit scoring models for borrowers applying for a purchase money mortgage or a mortgage refinance.
The FHFA approved FICO 10 T and Vantage Score 4.0 as the new credit scoring models for conventional mortgages, or loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The switch is expected to be a multi-year effort as the FHFA works with industry stakeholders to shift to the new credit score models, the agency said.
This is the first major update in 20 years. For the last 20 years, mortgage lenders have been required to use the Classic FICO model. This has ...
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