Testimony of Dan Iannicola, Jr.
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Education
Before the
Subcommittee on Education Reform
Committee on Education and the Workforce
U.S. House of Representatives

. . . Forty percent of Americans say they live beyond their means. In 2002 the average American household had $8,900 in credit card debt, up from $3,200 just 10 years earlier. Sixty percent of American households fail to pay their credit card bills in full each month and carry average balances of more than $4,000. The average household pays over five hundred dollars a year in interest charges on credit cards alone. Finally, in 2001, more people filed for bankruptcy than graduated from college. . . .

And, from Treasury Financial Education Messenger, Winter 2004 -- Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 5:

SAVINGS
Did you know that the personal savings rate as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) fell from 24% during World War II to 7.5% during the early 1980's to 2.4% in 2002? (Bureau of Economic Analysis (NIPA), 2003)

So no, I couldn't find any recent numbers spelling out exactly what I said. Even The Statistical Abstract of the United States only goes up to 2002. But offhand, I would say that the Department of the Treasury might know what it's talking about, and this doesn't sound good.

It certainly doesn't paint a portrait of a frugal nation planning for the future and living within its means.

And your prickly response tells me that I've hit a nerve.

The homeless started showing up in greater numbers during the Reagan Administration.