While it found that debt levels from unsecured short term loans declined in 2011, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service says that households in the UK aren’t quite out of the woods just yet, as they face an uphill battle to repay lending this year.
The CCCS conducted statistical analysis of 370,000 of the cases it handled, making the suggestion that rising rents and youth unemployment are two key components for falling into debt after taking out instant cash loans that consumers cannot afford to repay. Unemployed help-seekers made up 42 per cent of those who approached the CCCS under the age of 25, the credit counselling agency said; between pay freezes and redundancies, almost 50 per cent of all the CCCS’s clients across all age groups indicated that unemployment or under-employment was responsible for their money troubles.
Individuals and families living in private rentals were hardest hit by debt, as many of these households indicated that their rent had risen too high for them to afford. Older Brits were also falling into debt in increasing numbers, according to the CCCS report, as the organisation found that its services were being relied upon 15 per cent more than they were three years ago from those over the age of 60.
The consumer debt organsiation’s chairman, Lord Stevenson, stated that there is a significant minority of older Brits that have become pinned under what he referred to as ‘extreme’ level of debt. This minority is exhibiting rapid growth, Lord Stevenson said, and the older generations are hardest hit by inflation increases as they spend increasingly higher proportions of their income on essential things such as petrol, utility bills, and food.