The promise of economic recovery has rung in America's ears since the false promises of an end to the pandemic in 2021. Lawmakers, business owners, and speculators assured us that hallmarks of our consumer life, like casual spending on nonessentials, were returning, and that this would mean the society that houses the world’s largest economy could finally assume a new normal. Soon enough we would be able to take off our masks, go back to work, and have fun like nothing ever happened. Of course, it didn’t happen that way.

Instead, 2021 threw a financial curveball to many Americans as unemployment stimulus payments ended in September and housing prices and rents skyrocketed. Although service jobs began offering higher wages out of desperation, the rising costs of everyday goods due to supply chain issues have made it so that things don’t quite add up. We might be witnessing the calm before an unanticipated storm.

In a country that prides itself on its middle class, this may be the section of the population hit hardest. The population known as the middle class—code for normal, socially acceptable, and proximate to whiteness—now faces a looming crisis of consumer debt.

While mortgage, medical, and student loan debt are consistently hot (and important) topics, the debt that Americans accrue to pay for goods and services receives less attention. But at this moment, it is creeping up behind many, all under the guise of normalcy.

With that, spiraling consumer debt could majorly upset the way that thousands of Americans understand their economic position relative to others. The defining boundaries of the middle class have always been nebulous, gesturing more clearly toward lifestyle and cultural distinctions than a specific income bracket. In a nation with a vast physical and cultural geography, it can be hard to make generalizations about how one group lives based on how much money they make. Consider that 70% of respondents to a Northwestern Mutual survey reported that they are middle class—statistically, it doesn’t add up. Despite its challenges (or maybe because of them), the troublesome question of what constitutes the middle class can lead to productive new thinking about what functions class-based labels actually serve as more Americans take on more debt.

As the cost of living rises while wages falter, conversations on traditional and social media show us that it isn’t just those who are considered poor who are struggling to keep their heads above water. In this atmosphere, it is possible that the ability to obtain and use credit may now be the middle class signifier that the single-family home once was.

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, Americans held $856 billion in credit card debt, an increase over Q3 of “$52 billion, the largest quarterly increase observed in the 22-year history of the data.” According to a November 2021 study by NerdWallet, nearly one in five participants reported using credit cards “to pay for necessities during the pandemic.” At the same time, 17% of respondents reported “relying on credit cards for emergencies.” In a country without a universal social safety net, it is impossible to personal finance one’s way out of a financial crisis that hits from all sides. When there is no system to catch us, we fall into the deceitful hands of whoever has the money to lend.

As COVID-19 spread, creditors swept in where the state didn’t as Americans scrambled to purchase groceries, fill up their tanks, and create some semblance of normalcy within their homes. Whereas credit cards may have once been a last resort, they now represent a lifeline. For many whose wages have not kept up with the cost of living (nearly everyone), making purchases on credit has become a necessary strategy for keeping one’s head above water.

A December 2020 Vox article by Anne Helen Petersen entitled “America’s hollow middle class” puts words to this phenomenon of debt-driven purchasing. As Petersen outlines, the definition of middle class once meant that one had “the ability to save and acquire assets. Now, it mostly means the ability to put your bills on autopay and service debt.” At the same time it may look like middle class behaviors haven’t changed, because they haven’t. However, they are being carried out with little to no savings and, in place of that cushion, a growing collection of debts.

The pandemic signaled to some that they may not be as well off as they once thought: In fact, they might be staring down the barrel of precarity for the first time. Hallmarks of middle class life, like well-decorated single-family homes and new electronics, came into focus during quarantine. Zoom calls revealed our bedrooms and dining rooms, Amazon hauls took over TikTok, and one didn’t have to live in proximity to middle class people to see the way that commodities dictate their way of life. And while consumerism is a permanent fixation in American culture, creature comforts only expose the tip of the mounting iceberg of consumer debt.

The stimulus checks (aka “the stimmy&rdquo and supplemented unemployment payments from the federal government were supposed to be enough to keep people afloat in light of a job loss or medical bills, but this was far from reality. Given that non-unemployment stimulus payments were not distributed to Americans on a consistent basis, these payments were more like unexpected gifts rather than a reliable source of support. The myriad ways that people used their stimulus payments illuminate the financial needs of many Americans who call themselves middle class.

Because the payments were meant to be supplements, not safety nets, they provided an important glance into normal Americans’ priorities. Considering that the average American household has over $155,000 in debt (including mortgages and student loans), $3,600 over 24 months does not make much of a dent. Still, these are the people who are given the options to take on endless side hustles, spend less, or simply get a better job. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of households hold the same proportion of debt as the 1%. For many, it is as though there are just too many holes in the bottom of their boat for one or two people to patch up. Expenses keep coming, and short-term solutions only go so far.

With the widening of the chasm between those who can afford to live comfortably in the United States and those who can barely get by, the debt-funded middle class withers. This gap is gulping up the idea that one can be financially secure, upwardly mobile, and debt-free without being wealthy. It reveals that differentiating between the lower and middle classes is a futile exercise in obscuring the real economic dynamics at play.

In my experience, organizing people around class, money, and ownership is not just challenging—in some ways it can feel impossible. Growing up in a multiracial, working class neighborhood (and family), I did not realize that talking about money was a social faux pas; it was normal to lament about parents losing jobs, or to laugh about how the store brand cereals in a bag tasted just as good as the brand name ones in boxes. Money didn’t measure morality: The people with bigger houses just got lucky. It was clear that our parents worked hard enough. So as the child of union members and public workers, it seemed natural for me to point out the different economic realities that people were living.

When I left my neighborhood for college and began co-hosting campuswide dialogues about class identity and inequality, I could easily recruit my “low-income” peers, who were few in number. While we were all still identifying with our parents’ incomes, it was clear that money (or lack thereof) shaped the ways that we were able to take on this next step in life. Bridging issues of equity and financial support would require all of us to see our stake in them, which was easier said than done.

The middle class perspective was harder to wrangle, perhaps because the impetus to organize was harder to see. Although these students were accumulating debt and had jobs—unlike wealthy students—both are seen as “normal” rites of passage. Being on public assistance or living in a multigenerational home, on the other hand, are often chastised as the result of individual failings. In reality, the vast majority of Americans lack the amount of generational wealth necessary to truly never need help, whether from the government or a private lender.

Existing organizations that fight student and medical debt have gained traction in recent years, but are often met with criticism from those who do not hold these debts: According to detractors, these debts are the result of entitlement and laziness, not systemic failures. Meanwhile, Americans in need of assistance are no better off, no matter how hard they work.

A reckoning with perceived versus real financial stability, which partly happened in 2008, continues. It offers the question, “What level of precarity is socially acceptable? How much debt can one manage, emotionally and financially, before one is no longer a member of the ‘haves?’”

Despite the brief dip in credit card debt during the pandemic, balances are on the rise.
If the crisis of consumer debt can show us anything, it’s that cultural norms can be the unseen things keeping us from seeing a shared interest. Our widespread hesitancy to talk about money is rooted in the fear of being viewed as poor and fuels the pay secrecy that protects employers. But because of the pandemic, Americans are more aware of their economic situations now than they have been in generations, minus the middle class catch-all. Perhaps this awareness can snowball into a new definition of a shared economic future—one that is not borrowed, but that is consistently and equitably attainable.

This story was produced through the Daily Kos Emerging Fellows (DKEF) Program. Read more about DKEF (and meet other Emerging Fellows) here.