Latest / Market Pulse / Understanding the K-Shaped Economy in 2026

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Understanding the K-Shaped Economy in 2026 · Market Pulse

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Welcome to the Market Pulse podcast from Equifax,
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where we break down the latest economic and credit insights to help you navigate
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today's business landscape.
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Welcome to the Market Pulse Podcast. I'm your host, Dave Sojka,
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a member of the Equifax Advisory Team.
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The Equifax advisors align strategy and execution by translating economic and
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industry trends into practical Equifax, data backed insights and stories.
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We equip executives with data-driven narratives to make clear,
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strategic and tactical decisions. In other words,
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we don't just study the economy, we operationalize it for a competitive edge.
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I want to welcome our team of experts I've gathered today,
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our fearless leader and eyewear fashionista, Emmaline Aliff
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resident economist and connoisseur of coffee, Jesse Hardin,
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Market Pulse Index guru and flight sim enthusiast, Tom O'Neill.
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And finally, student loan expert and mata aficionado,
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Maria Urtubey. Welcome everyone.
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Welcome Dave.
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Dave. Hey there.
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To kind of get us started, I'd like us all to think about
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what's one major triple event you're excited for the rest
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of the year, and it can't be work related.
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Come October, I am going to be a grandfather for the first time.
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Oh, woo.
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That's awesome. Congratulations. Congratulations.
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Thank you. Thank you.
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You have a new, you have a new level of credibility now.
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. That's right. These gray hairs are, are, they continue to be earned.
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Alright.
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So I will add a new adjective to your introduction as to grandpa.
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I think the sub question for Tom is what's your name going to be?
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Is it going to be grampy or grumpy or.
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For you guys? for you guys it will be Tom .
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Did Tom for my, for my daughter? It will, it will. Well, no,
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I'm not going to tell you guys because then you're going to use it. Oh, no. And,
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and for the kid, , it's,
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it's pretty much going to be whatever the child wants to call me. .
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Yeah. I think you have to let them choose. We've got a trip planned.
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I waited for gas prices to get as high as possible,
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and then we want to do like a 2000 mile road trip.
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So we are going to go from Texas to Maine and back.
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We'll, we'll see if we end up making it up there and or making it back.
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That's, that's impressive. Jesse.
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I like the way that you put you put some of these topics that we
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discussed around affordability and financial stress to practical use.
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That's nice.
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Yeah. It's quite, quite nerdy. Right. We are going to visit,
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I think a few colleges.
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I've got a freshman going into sophomore student.
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So we're going to take a look at a few colleges, maybe from here to there.
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Maybe understand the economics of the college situation.
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, sadly enough. Yeah.
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Had a few going through myself. Yeah. I think for me,
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I'm just looking forward to being outside the Atlanta area is very
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robust activities during the summertime activity.
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And of course I spend a lot of my time working,
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so getting outside and having a good time is fun.
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Going back to the college topic my eldest, my daughter is graduating.
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So we'll be driving in June down to Southern California for
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her graduation.
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And my parents are coming to visit for that specific event and celebration.
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So it should be fun.
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Congratulations. Wow. Yeah. Got a lot of big things happening.
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And Dave.
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So my oldest, my son is getting married in June.
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And what's unique too,
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I was asked to also give the best man speech.
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Wow.
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So I have to think about how do I roast my son
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mildly, but also celebrate the wonderful event that it's,
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that the wedding will be. So.
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Amongst all of us, we've got most of,
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like life's major chapters covered for this, this we've got,
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you know, yeah.
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Child's doing the college exploration. We've got one graduating college,
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we've got grandkids on the way. We've got marriages,
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and Emmmaline might make it outside. So, you know,
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I think we've got a lot of like major chapters covered.
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As we head into the middle of Q2. Right. We just started in May.
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We've all been out and about at conferences at client sites,
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as well as during our Market Pulse webinars and have gathered questions that
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you, our lovely audience have been asking. But before we do that,
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I'd like to quickly turn to Justin Begley from Moody's,
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who will give us a quick update on where some of the important economic and
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consumer trend metrics stand.
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US economic growth accelerated in the first quarter of 2026 as government
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activity rebounded from the drag caused by the record long government shutdown
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in the previous quarter.
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The conflict in the Middle East began to take a toll only in the final weeks of
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the quarter. So it had little impact on overall growth.
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Any negative impact that it did have was offset by stimulus from the one big
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beautiful bill. Real GDP grew 2% on an annualized basis,
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up from 0.5% in the fourth quarter.
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Non-Residential fixed investments, exports,
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consumer spending and government spending were the largest drivers of growth in
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the first quarter. But the inventory also contributed.
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Some imports, however,
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were a major drag and residential investment was a minor drag.
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And while not explicitly await on growth,
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yet the conflict in Iran has caused inflation to surge.
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The PCE Deflator jumped 0.7% in March,
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and the monthly increases thanks to a 21% increase in the price of gasoline
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and other energy goods. And on a year ago basis,
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the rate of inflation rose from 2.8% in February to 3.5%.
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Now, another big price jump is not coming in April,
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but neither is an offsetting correction.
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Despite some temporary reprieve here and there.
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Oil prices remained elevated throughout the month,
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and unleaded gasoline prices in the US have on average held above
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$4 per gallon. As a result, monetary policy makers are sitting on their hands.
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The Federal Open Market Committee voted to keep the Fed funds rate unchanged at
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their April meeting with an upper bound of about 3.75%.
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But uncertainty about the outcome of the conflict and its macroeconomic
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consequences is high.
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And four voting members dissented from the majority's decision, not since 1992,
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has a meeting, had so many objections,
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but fractious as the FOMC may appear near term policy decisions will actually
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be pretty easy in the coming months. Given inflation's trend in 2026,
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when we put our may baseline forecast together,
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we're likely going to push back the timing of the next rate cut.
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Our April forecast anticipated 1 25 basis point cut in December.
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But oil prices are approaching their highest points since the crisis began.
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And a durable resolution is difficult to imagine at this point.
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Thanks, Justin. The health of the US consumer is deeply bifurcated,
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characterized by a K-shaped reality,
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where total consumer debt has climbed to almost 3% year over year. As of March,
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prime borrowers are actively leveraging their wealth.
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Underserved populations are heavily reliant on high cost alternative debt and
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mounting financial stress is creating cracks in consumer resilience,
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pretty pretty light topic. So with that,
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we'll dive into some questions and themes. So starting off,
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one of the questions we've gotten now that the DOJ has dropped their
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investigation into Chairman Powell,
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what might we expect from the new nominee? Kevin Walsh,
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who's going to take that one?
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Dave, I'll take that one. And I know I've got a time limit here.
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There's so many things to think about with respect to
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chairman Walsh or potential chairman Walsh coming in. I would say, you know,
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it stands to keep in mind that he is one vote on a panel of,
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of 12 voters.
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So to think that there's going to be a large scale change in the behavior or
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makeup of the, the Fed is, is probably you know, not going to happen.
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I would say probably a couple things to think about.
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So the idea around trimming the Fed's balance sheet it seems to be
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a focus also looking at things like trim mean inflation.
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So the idea that you cut the tails off of inflation and really kind of look at
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what's core to the movement of inflation. So some, you know,
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large ideas, I think. But again, keeping in mind that it's one vote.
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And there's, you know, there's others. And in fact, we heard it,
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Chairman Powell's going to stay on in his role.
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So so I do think we're going to get,
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probably continue to see fireworks from that side of the of the aisle.
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You know, as, as we've been discussing over the last several market pulses.
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You know, if we're, say if we're looking at the entire country, if we're,
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if our clients are looking at their entire portfolios,
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they might be missing something, right? The details matter.
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And one thing I think is kind of, would be kind of interesting,
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since all of us are are in different parts of the country you know,
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I think it'd be kind of cool for our audience to hear briefly,
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kind of what do we, you know,
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what is the housing market doing in our parts of the country?
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You want to go west to east or east to west? What do you guys feel like?
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.
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Probably go southeast, first.
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Southeast to? So you go southeast to northwest way to way to be contrarian.
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All right. All right.
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So in Atlanta I think it's kind of interesting and I'm always looking
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for things like this because it's like,
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is there a time when I do I want to change my housing situation,
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downsize upsize? Probably not upsize as my kids get older.
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But I think what's interesting is that it's kind of shifted away from
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more of the high growth,
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bargain based city that it used to be like when I moved here.
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It was very you know, changing from an affordability standpoint,
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and it's kind of evolved into something that's more tighter in terms of
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inventory and more of a seller's market. And, and I know we,
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we've probably done, we've been chatting about, you know,
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comparing housing prices with you know,
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there's the higher plateau median of around four 17 K
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now. And, and it's, it's kind of interesting how I,
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and what we probably would talk about this a little bit more too, is the,
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the bifurcation of Atlanta with the the more tech cluster in the
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upper suburbs which would in the market Pulse Index would be more like the upper
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end of the K. And then, you know,
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there's different locations that are experiencing you know,
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different housing on other areas of the city.
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Then I can cover Texas.
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So I'm actually east Texas-based and closest to Dallas.
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So I'll maybe give two opinions. First, I would say where, where I'm at,
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it seems like there's a lot of stagnant inventory. So,
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still homes trying to be sold, maybe not as many buyers for those,
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that sounds like people are still kind of just in a wait and see mode.
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If you think of Dallas more as a metro area,
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it seems like we are seeing still the,
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the growth of incoming households from other areas. So, you know,
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California, New York,
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we've had a lot of new corporations move into the Dallas area from places like
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that.
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And so I think we've seen families still kind of pouring into that metro area,
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which means the, you know,
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the labor or the housing supply seems like it is pretty tight in those areas.
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I'm in California, in Northern California,
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and here there is a severe housing crisis, low supply,
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very high costs in San Jose and San Francisco, for example,
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with average housing prices exceeding 1 million,
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and on the rental front,
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households needing three times the state minimum wage to
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afford average asking rent.
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So that perpetuates holding the lowest home ownership
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rate of the nation.
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It adds to the already high homelessness situation and pushes,
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going back to what Jesse shared,
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some residents to look for opportunities in other states.
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I guess I'm next Midwest. So I'm in the Chicagoland area,
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western suburbs. So the Illinois market is really a, you know,
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a seller's market. I think something that, you know,
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Jesse touched on in Texas as well. You know, rising home prices,
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low inventory you know,
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buyer negotiation power has improved slightly more recently
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you know, the statewide mediated home price,
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which is going to sound really strange, is only $314,000,
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which is up about 4.5%. But if we think about, you know, just like,
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you know,
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there are two co there are two coasts in the middle when ESPN talks about the
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country you know, it is not just Chicago. It's not only Illinois.
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So obviously while there's higher prices in the Chicagoland area,
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the greater Illinois area statewide is much, it's much lower.
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So kind of closing high mortgage rates,
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high prices challenging en environment, especially for first time home buyers.
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Yeah. And I'll I'll finish things up. I'm, I'm out here in the,
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the DC area in northern Virginia, and I think it,
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on the one hand, it's interesting because we,
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we see what a lot of the major metropolitan areas see where, you know, the,
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the city itself is kind of sluggish. DC market is sluggish, but the suburbs are,
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are still pretty hot.
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But one of the things that I find most interesting about this particular market,
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everyone pretty much knows that DC is a, a very transient area,
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a lot of people moving in government, military
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and yet we are also feeling the impact of the lock-in effect of
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people that locked into mortgages a few years ago and don't want to leave that.
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So you have this force keeping people put in a very transient area.
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And what we're seeing is the rental market for these houses kind of
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exploding, you know? And people, instead of selling their house when they leave,
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they're now renting it.
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And so it's a very interesting dynamic that we haven't seen before.
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Hey, one of the things I just realized that I probably should have included,
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but you know, we still see these data centers, these, the,
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the proliferation of data centers,
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and I think that's been set kind of interesting.
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I mentioned the suburbs around DC still pretty hot.
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That's one of the main reasons why, at least here in Northern Virginia,
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we're right outside Loudoun County, you know, data center capital right.
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And that is definitely one of the things driving the, the heat of that market.
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Well.
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Thank you audience.
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Hopefully you enjoyed a little regional perspective from the advisors.
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So actually going to take a little, a little more hands-on here,
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this next question. We've had several lenders ask us,
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how do we get ahead of a more proactively managed delinquencies or charge offs
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among the vehicle loan market?
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Do we need a buzzer to buzz in on this? .
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, I'd.
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Like to go first if I can. There's my buzzer, of course,
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that is an area that we've been studying you know, quite a bit. You know, we,
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we have been drilling into the k-shaped economy,
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especially at the consumer level and the shrinking middle of that
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distribution. And like where,
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specifically when we think about subprime delinquencies and, and auto space,
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we know that they are at an pretty much an all time high but they're still
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top of the payment hierarchy when it comes to paying an auto.
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So the place that I would look at to get ahead of a, any form of delinquency,
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regardless of portfolio mix is what's happening like in different
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asset classes for example, that lead into
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into the auto payment. So credit cards you know, for example,
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like what is happening with the delinquency levels there and the utilization,
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because we know over time that we've studied that one of the leading indicators
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for delinquencies on other asset classes like auto is, you know, have the,
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has the utilization risen on their credit card,
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and they don't have as much liquid credit available to cover any monthly
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expenses that have been increasing.
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I think this is going to be kind of interesting as well as we were kind of
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addressing costs of things.
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Is the change in debt to income
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a predictor of consumer score migration?
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And I'll let you guys take this any way you see fit.
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Yeah, I, I could, I could kick that one off. I'll, I'll give a short answer yes,
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and then I'll follow up with my customary, but it depends because that's,
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that's not a sweeping statement. I, the, yes,
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we do see a definite pos correlation between rising DTI
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and, and shifts in credit score that just, that stands to reason,
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but it's not just a blanket statement. There's,
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there's different types of debts that are very much in play here.
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There's a difference between rising revolving debt and say,
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a mortgage debt that has very different characteristics.
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And even within those subgroups is,
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is revolving debt rising chronically? Yeah.
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Over time signifying more and more stress that that consumer might be under?
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Or is it a onetime increase for a planned purchase that they had?
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And quite frankly, even in the,
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the mortgage scenario that I laid out, you know,
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the fact that that market is changing, where,
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you know, housing expenses used to be expected to be about 30%,
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it's now 40% even that population is,
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is under more stress that you really have to look broader than just what's on
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the, the file to to get a sense of.
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Yeah, I, I think DTI is written at a policy for a reason,
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and all the reasons are laid out the way you described there, Tom with like,
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you know, high DTI in particular, having the historic, you know,
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when we see that as it rises in, in those categories that we,
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we typically see in the next year to year and a half as they exhaust,
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you know, potential their liquidity it,
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it will have some form of you know, impact to liquid credit they might have.
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And I would add last that 40 is a new 30 that to was referring to.
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And that DTI debt to income calculation is critical, not just for mortgages. We,
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we keep hearing that and we know credit risk is not enough,
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and there are other aspects of the consumer profile such as payment capacity
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that plays such an important role as well. So we have to keep that in mind.
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Thank you all that was really in depth, I think, and hopefully our,
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those that have asked that question are getting some good tidbits here.
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Kind of taking again,
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a wider view again is the K-shaped economy still an appropriate characterization
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in 2026,
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given that wage growth for both the top and bottom halves have converged to the
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same level about 3.7% through February of 26?
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I can start out with that. And then Tom,
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I'd love to hear your thoughts based on market pulse index,
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but maybe I'll steal Tom's response. Yes. But,
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so I do think the K shape is still,
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we still see that divergence towards the middle.
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So I still think Ks shape is real,
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but it's also kind of an academic exercise really,
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in terms of what you want to call it. I think it either it's K or E,
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but what it means is that there is a you know,
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a real pattern forming with challenge and Dave, like you mentioned,
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the wage growth that wage growth,
20:19
that average wage growth is staying right above zero.
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But that, you know, that sort of means, if you think of averages,
20:27
that means that some wage growth is below. And so we still see that you know,
20:32
that concern in the middle you know,
20:34
sort of the divergence from the middle towards the bottom tail. And so I really,
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whether you call it K or e, I really you know,
20:41
still think an area of focus and should still be.
20:46
Yeah. I fully agree. And, I agree with, yeah, it's,
20:51
it's less important to put a label such as K, you know, on this. What's,
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what's important is what that, that visual represents,
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and that's the trajectory of these different consumers.
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because That's really what, what we,
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and lenders and people within the FI fields overall are concerned
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about. Just like, are these individuals,
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are these households strengthening their financial position,
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or are they sliding into more and more stress?
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And that's where, as Jesse's points out, looking at averages,
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it's not going to cut it anymore. I mean, if we say, Hey, 3.7% wage growth,
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great, but that's 1% for some people, or negative percent for some people,
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and it's 5% or 10% for others. And for, for some populations,
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that means that they're under more and more stress. And for other populations,
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it means that they, they've got more financial opportunities, welcome to 'em.
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And right now with credit scores and, and income bans,
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it's hard to tell those two populations apart.
21:56
Yeah, I was in conversation with my kids about the socio economy.
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I know a fun dinner conversation with my teenagers, but they, they referred,
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they told me when I said that I think we're in the K shaped economy.
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They said maybe we're in a six,
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seven shaped economy in which I thought was kind of funny based on all the Gen Z
22:15
comments.
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For the old watching, watching at home.
22:19
Outdoors. Yeah. This is why you need to get outside more Em .
22:23
Yeah, it's, but it's, but there's, there's absolutely been, I,
22:26
I think the point about that is the,
22:27
the labeling sometimes can reduce the meaning of what's actually happening.
22:32
And to those points, like we,
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we know that middle classes compressed to some degree. And,
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we've already talked about some of these things with housing and insurance costs
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and things like that.
22:43
If we looked at let's say auto and personal loan,
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and we can include any portfolio here, you know,
22:49
are we seeing any regional differences?
22:52
Yeah, maybe I can get started. With the Auto 60
22:57
and more days due balanced delinquency, for example,
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all regions except for the West, have experienced year over year declines,
23:05
just as we have observed at the national level with a 1.3% year over year
23:10
improvement. Within that context, though,
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the west is the only region with a delinquency rate below that national
23:17
average the Midwest,
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the Northeast and the South are all at or above the 1.5%
23:24
delinquency rate. We observed overall as of March,
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in the case of personal loan, for example,
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delinquencies have declined year over urinal regions.
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And while showing this improvement,
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the south is tracking above the 3.2 delinquency rate
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at 3.8%. So those are two.
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Examples. Yeah, that's,
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that's an interesting point about Atlanta or the Atlanta, the South in general.
23:52
You know, when you were, you know, speaking about that. And so when,
23:56
when we look at things, we oftentimes, do you see that the southeast region,
24:00
there's oftentimes spikes in auto personal loan that will
24:05
lead the national trends by typically a quarter or so.
24:09
So I found that interesting. You know,
24:11
in particular on some of the,
24:14
the leading edge cases and how delinquencies do differ as you were describing.
24:19
Okay. going back to our,
24:22
our chairman Powell,
24:25
a lot of questions about him recently,
24:28
he stated that the level of borrowing and debt is not sustainable
24:33
at what point with this adversely affect the economy.
24:38
And I do want to just quickly point out as of yesterday, the 30th of April,
24:43
US debt now exceeds a hundred percent of GDP.
24:46
It hit a hundred 0.2%.
24:48
Yeah, I, again, I can,
24:50
I can start that one at least I feel like I lobbed the grenade and then run
24:53
away. What I would say is I think, you know,
24:57
if I think of it in context of maybe finance and opportunity cost,
25:03
certainly at a high debt level, there's an opportunity cost for that decision.
25:07
And so I think we're seeing that today. Whether you, you know,
25:10
you talk about the a hundred percent threshold,
25:12
if you think of the fact that government investment crowds out private
25:15
investment, that, you know, that can certainly be a concern also,
25:18
the rising interest rate sensitivity and what a higher debt load does to,
25:23
you know, to that that concern.
25:26
So I think we're probably starting to feel, and,
25:29
and probably have felt for a while, the effects of carrying high debt.
25:32
You can debate the academics of whether, you know,
25:35
one number is too high or not, but I, I think we're probably, you know,
25:38
feeling that effect and we're going to make some hard decisions and really have
25:41
to make some hard decisions moving forward about how you start to minimize that,
25:45
you know, that debt load.
25:48
And thanks, Jesse. Kind of taking that a little bit further now.
25:50
So as we have been engaging with our lenders, you know, our,
25:54
our partners, you know, what should they be looking out for? How, how would,
25:59
you know, kind of what Jesse just kind of laid out,
26:01
how's that going to impact the bank or a credit union or finance company?
26:05
Anyone else want to chime in here?
26:08
Well, certainly it, the cost of borrowing is, going to be an impact. And if
26:14
whatever levels, whether,
26:15
whether that a hundred percent of GDP is some emotional
26:20
threshold,
26:20
that that causes a reaction one way or the other is to be determined.
26:25
But,
26:26
but as the debt levels continue to be in focus and start
26:31
to have an impact on macroeconomic policies and choices,
26:36
certainly the cost of borrowing is going to be something that lenders will need
26:39
to take a close eye on.
26:43
Yeah, I think, I think taking the,
26:44
that thing down to the individual level for what directly could be
26:49
impacting them,
26:50
as we oftentimes see that impacts directly through interest rates,
26:54
which is of course, you know, some impact and,
26:58
but it's part of the equation for the cost of money and
27:02
any form of credit crunch that might exist from repricing debt especially
27:07
with banks,
27:08
if they do hold government debt as a safety mechanism for their overall reserves
27:13
and, and things like that.
27:14
So those are the things that I I guess when I hear about that, that I start,
27:19
you know, considering what could the impact be with respect to the decisions,
27:23
you know, the Fed might make.
27:24
Something very top of mind to a lot of people.
27:29
Key point here,
27:29
should the war with Iran continue to drag on what are the
27:34
anticipated effects on oil prices?
27:37
And we'll touch on auto sales as well here.
27:40
I mean, I would say, you know, just from a macro perspective,
27:44
just thinking about what it means to see higher oil prices
27:49
I think there's some rules of thumb that at for every you know,
27:52
for every 40 dollar increase in the price of oil, we, you know,
27:57
we tend to see a real impact over a dollar per gallon impact on
28:01
households. We can see you know,
28:04
that translates to a thousand dollars for an average household over the course
28:07
of a year. So it is, it is impactful, especially as you think of the,
28:12
the context of the K and what we talked about, you know, that,
28:16
that growing middle and, and how that impacts the growing middle.
28:20
Yeah, the,
28:21
I think the price of the pump is the closest thing for impact immediately
28:26
that we would observe. That's when we talk about individual cash flow.
28:30
And so watching that of course is, is important,
28:33
but the long-term impacts for the lending business is a little bit more you
28:38
know, difficult. But I think sentiment, of course, is you know,
28:41
is of course deeply impacted by you know, these things that are happening.
28:46
I would just follow up from that statement is like, yes,
28:48
the price at the pump is the most immediate and perhaps the most visceral
28:53
effect, but
28:56
it's important to keep in mind that rising oil prices have
29:01
a very broad inflationary impact.
29:03
Everything that requires oil to be produced, to be shipped for us,
29:08
you know, to where we can consume it. Yeah.
29:11
All of these things are impacted by rising oil prices.
29:14
It's not just the pump though that mm-hmm . Again, is,
29:16
is what everyone sees the moment they step outdoors.
29:20
Yeah. America runs on oil and coffee, right? That's right.
29:23
. There you go. And you have to get the oil to go get your coffee slogan.
29:26
Unless you're Jesse higher than you have to worry about it.
29:29
Dave, I did.
29:31
I think I just completely glossed over the last part of that question about auto
29:35
sales. And I do think, you know, we,
29:37
we've seen preferences certainly with auto sales sort of
29:43
ebb and flow,
29:44
it seems like there was adoption of ev and then maybe less you know,
29:48
less interest in EV would be interesting to see what happens with with EV if we
29:52
do see longer than, than usual increases in gas prices. But overall,
29:57
it seems like Americans on the whole seem to seem to like their
30:02
ice vehicles. So I think that, you know,
30:05
there could be a somewhat of a disconnect there for a while.
30:10
Alright, so again, continuing our theme on, you know, it's not just the average
30:17
here's a question.
30:18
How are different income groups being impacted by rising inflation of goods and
30:22
services?
30:23
, I, I'll, I'll start off with that and,
30:26
and I'm glad that I started off this session by,
30:29
by announcing that I'm going to be a grandpa because now,
30:32
now I can play my grumpy old man, you know, routine and say, you know,
30:35
back in my day things used to be pretty straightforward. You know,
30:40
inflation would rise and we could say, here's the, the,
30:43
the groups that are going to be impacted first and most severely and you just
30:48
can't do that the same way anymore. Yeah. Even the, the housing,
30:53
you know, discussion that we had earlier, that's,
30:55
that's a good example where you think of homeowners and,
30:59
and higher income tier groups as kind of immune to,
31:04
or more immune, I should say, to rising inflation. But even there,
31:07
we're seeing the stress, you know, we see homeowners, even those locked in at,
31:12
at low rates are feeling the pinch of rising
31:18
property insurance and, you know,
31:20
property taxes and the non-mortgage aspects of, of owning a home.
31:25
And if groups like that, that historically are,
31:29
are less sensitive to inflationary pressures,
31:33
if they're feeling the impact, then, you know,
31:36
that's kind of indicative of how hard it is to say,
31:40
here's where the pinch is going to be felt because it could be anywhere.
31:44
Yeah. I, you know,
31:45
to the point that the grumpy old man self proclaims was making
31:50
that, that divergence is, you know,
31:53
really to me when I think about that in this particular case is about how
31:58
you know, how inflation differs, but it's oftentimes the capacity to absorb it.
32:04
And you know,
32:04
we may see that any form of expenditure growth can dictate the shape of
32:09
those curves is the top end that are outpacing inflation and able to absorb
32:14
in the bottom end of the K that are, are not,
32:17
and things become more challenging.
32:20
Alright, so oh, this is interesting,
32:24
a topic that alone that we really haven't talked,
32:27
we don't think much about but it's been in the news a lot, student loans.
32:31
And really question is,
32:33
has there been a change in the performance of student loan delinquency?
32:36
I think our,
32:37
I think we have a guru that can answer this question trend is up again
32:42
recall that while the balance 90 or more days past due delinquency,
32:47
which is how we track student loans and first mortgages, it stands at 17%.
32:52
So it's below the, over 9%,
32:55
below the all-time high of May of last year. And similarly,
32:59
the unit stands at 23 and is over seven or at 7%.
33:03
Below that peak delinquencies as of March of
33:08
2026 are on their fourth month over month increase.
33:13
So we have to keep going back,
33:15
we have to go back to thinking about them and evaluating how they impact
33:20
consumers. Thanks, Maria. Oh, okay.
33:24
This is an interesting question here.
33:28
VantageScore clusters for separate segments of the K economy. Who,
33:32
who can help us with that one?
33:33
So with VantageScore clusters, you know,
33:37
we have talked about the khap economy.
33:39
What's interesting about that in particular is that different components
33:44
as they feed into, as we're, you know,
33:46
when we examine these through the market pulse index in particular to help shape
33:51
what things look like credit score VantageScore 4.0 in particular is
33:56
part of what we study in that. And we have seen on the lower end some you know,
34:01
stabilization with that population.
34:03
A lot of that has to do with a condensing of that those
34:08
groups where if someone has a delinquency like we described already,
34:11
they're more likely to have other delinquencies.
34:13
So that subprime population has shrunk from about 26% going back five,
34:18
six years ago down to you know, hovering around 19 to 20% now. So the,
34:23
there's been some stabilization,
34:24
but mainly that's because their credit scores can't really get much worse.
34:28
Okay. I think that we've got time for one more question and
34:34
you know, advisors, Equifax employees,
34:40
statisticians, flight sim gurus, coffee, fish. Yes.
34:44
But we're also all consumers, right? And so yeah,
34:48
as we've laid out the story of choice that many Americans are having to make,
34:53
I'm going to ask each of the advisors,
34:56
what's the one thing that you aren't willing to give up,
34:59
even in a challenging economy?
35:01
I, you know, I was trying, when, when you mentioned this, it's like, ooh,
35:05
what could it be? And I thought the first thing that came to my mind is my hair.
35:10
Not that you can tell right now,
35:11
but that's the one thing I splurge highlights special blow
35:17
drying. I'm not giving that up. It's my one. Yeah.
35:22
You'll, I, I totally agree. It is expensive. You'll.
35:25
Be shocked to know that that was not the first thing that came to my mind.
35:28
Maria , no. no. My, my, my haircare was,
35:32
was not top of mind. .
35:35
. Well,
35:36
to use the phrase we had to make some cuts at the CICA household with repair
35:40
policy. .
35:43
What.
35:43
Is your, when it comes to that, you know, we see the areas to cut back on.
35:47
Oh, what is yours, Tom?
35:49
My, I actually, I'm going to go all sappy and I'm going to,
35:52
I'm going to continue the grandfather thing, because quite frankly,
35:56
I am going to be spoiling this kid . And, and that is the one area that
36:03
I am looking forward to doing. And even if even,
36:07
and we, Lord knows baby stuff is already expensive, ,
36:12
but even if, even if that continues to go up,
36:15
I'm not missing this opportunity to to sort of enjoy this and
36:21
spoil the kid rotten.
36:22
Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah,
36:24
I think there's so many things that I could say and so many things that I know
36:28
that y'all are aware of that I can't live without. But the,
36:33
the thing I would talk about is what Dave opened with my glasses. You know,
36:36
just having, having readers and the, the price of readers,
36:40
these are very much a disposable item. , I lose them, I misplace them,
36:44
they break. But fortunately I have several of them.
36:47
But in order for me to continue doing what we do, I've gotta have them.
36:51
And they're all very stylish.
36:53
Thank you.
36:54
I have to say Tom, you surprised me. I was going with with the,
36:59
the Belgian nails for you, since you since you're a beer.
37:02
Official. You know, if, if I didn't, if I didn't have a grandchild on the way,
37:06
that probably would be it. Yeah.
37:08
There you go. Maybe.
37:10
Both.
37:10
.
37:11
Yeah, actually, yeah, there's, yeah.
37:12
There's room for both. Yeah.
37:14
Yeah. That's where I was going to go.
37:15
I was going to say I really can't narrow it down to one.
37:20
So I would say what Dave said, coffee, I'm not going to,
37:24
I'm not going to lit up, let up on my, my single origin coffee.
37:28
I think the other is beef. So thinking about beef, I can't got,
37:33
I gotta have a steak every once in a while.
37:35
So we've seen those prices kind of wildly spike up and down.
37:39
So maybe I'll go with those two.
37:41
Fortunately, you live in the ranch or country. Yeah.
37:43
Yeah. Just go down the street, right? And.
37:46
Dave?
37:47
Yeah. Dave, what about you?
37:48
Yeah.
37:49
Me. It's going to be premium cigars. So obviously, you know, we all work hard.
37:53
We need to play hard every once in a while too.
37:55
And there's nothing that helps me relax
38:00
and, and enjoy the company of, of, of friends than a nice cigar.
38:05
And so I would say it's a way to unwind and it's a way to connect with another
38:10
human being no matter where you're from, what you do.
38:16
It brings us all together. I think with that, we'll call it a podcast. Yeah.
38:20
I want to thank my panel. There's a lot of information we covered.
38:25
I had fun. I think we all had fun. Hopefully you,
38:27
the audience will enjoy this as well. So thanks, Emmaline, Jesse, Tom,
38:31
and Maria for joining me.
38:32
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
38:33
Dave. And then to our listeners, I really hope you enjoyed today's topic.
38:36
If you have other questions or suggestions for future podcasts,
38:39
you can reach advisors@equifax.com. We look forward to hearing from you.
38:44
The information and opinions provided in this podcast are intended as general
38:48
guidance only, and are subject to change without notice.
38:51
The views presented during the podcast are those of the presenter as of the date
38:55
this podcast has recorded and do not necessarily reflect official positions of
39:00
Equifax.
39:02
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