High school proms, college and that first job are some of the stages of life, but the director of the Conference Board`s Consumer Research Center said he thinks it is time to add a category called ”the in-debt years.”
Fabian Linden, director of the New York-based research center, said much of the increased consumer debt of recent years reflects the age and population mix in the country. ”There are stages that are the `in-debt` years of your life,” he said. The Baby-Boomer generation that is moving into its late 30s and early 40s is at the peak microwave-dishwasher-coffee-grinder-buying age, he said.
”When you`re moving into adulthood and family life, you`re buying appliances and all that other jazz that goes into the home,” Linden said. As for credit cards as the form of payment used by many Americans, he said that has become a fact of life.
