Who is Significantly in Debt?

One of my math students used this article for an article report in Math 25.

The article includes an interesting graph showing what percentage of Americans devote more than 40% of their monthly income to debt. The data compares 2004 and 2007, broken down into six income categories.

In only slightly related news, the most entertaining quotation I have read about debt and stimulus was written by Monique Stuart.

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC)...in his appearance on Meet the Press this morning was asked if more stimulus was needed for this economy, and this was his response:

I’ve got people in South Carolina who are thinking about buying a car but are having a very difficult time getting a car loan. But their biggest fear is they think they may get laid off in the next six months. So if we could get credit flowing in the consumer areas, I think it would stabilize the economy more than anything else.

How exactly is getting credit flowing to unworthy borrowers going to stabilize the economy? I’m just some young (dirty) blond chick, what do I know? I may be wrong here but, it seems to me, if your biggest fear is that you think you may be laid off in the next six months, you probably shouldn’t be thinking about buying a car. I’m just saying.