Americans—especially young adults—are increasingly going into debt to pay emergency expenses as required payments on federal student loans resume and inflation squeezes household budgets.

That’s according to a survey released last week by decision intelligence company Morning Consult in collaboration with Bloomberg News, which found that as the year has gone on, fewer people have been able to pay unexpected expenses of $200 to $600 in cash or an equivalent, such as a credit card that’s paid off at the end of the month, as the chart below shows.

It’s especially gotten harder for people aged 18-26. Among this group, referred to as Generation Z, the share of people who said they could cover a $200 to $600 emergency expense in cash fell to 52% in the fourth quarter, down from 66% at the start of the year.

Morning Consult polled 11,000 people in October, about half of whom said they had emergency expenses in the past month. The emergency expense question was intentionally similar to a widely-cited Federal Reserve survey, which asks people if they could pay for an unexpected $400 expense in cash (63% said yes in May 2023.) 

Morning Consult went a step further, also asking people how they had covered those unexpected bills—such as car repairs, home repairs, medical bills, or educational expenses—if they actually had them.

As the ability to pay with cash (or a credit card fully paid at month’s end) has diminished, more people said they were putting debt on credit cards, taking out bank or payday loans, borrowing from family members, or selling possessions.

The increasing use of debt by Gen Z to pay emergency expenses may reflect trends observed in other economic data on household finances. Many people are feeling the financial pressure of the rapid cost-of-living increases over the past two years, with the added burden, especially for younger borrowers, of having to resume payments on federal student loans in October after a three-and-a-half year pause. Household 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:savings are dwindling as a result of these trends, according to various analyses by economists.