Majority Of U.S. Consumers Say Outbreak Could Delay Their Credit Card Payments

A majority of Americans expect to have trouble making payments on their credit cards as the coronavirus crisis continues worldwide, according to a new survey by WalletHub.

Sixty-seven percent of Americans expressed these worries in an online WalletHub survey of 500 people.

WalletHub found that past spending habits were now catching up with many respondents, with  76% saying they thought that credit card companies should forgive late payments resulting from the economic impact of the coronavirus. WalletHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou noted such actions have been taken during previous natural disasters. 

WalletHub noted that if the survey results reflect the sentiments of the overall U.S. population, that would mean tens of millions of people will be struggling with credit card payments.

“Roughly 67 million Americans anticipate having trouble paying their credit card bills because of the coronavirus,” he said today in a news release. “Their struggles could easily ripple through the economy if left unaddressed, especially considering the more than $1 trillion in credit card debt currently owed by U.S. consumers.”

Over one-third of respondents (37%) said they already had or would cancel travel plans because of the coronavirus. A majority of those respondents were women (60%), compared with a majority of men (61%) who said they were more likely to instead spend less on entertainment events. However, 60% of respondents said that if they had $100, they would rather spend it on entertainment than on masks and sanitizers..

While many respondents said they were worried about their personal finances during the epidemic, six out of 10 said they did not want to handle money because they believed it was possible to contract the coronavirus from physical contact with it.

That may be good news for many Americans who struggle to save, according to WalletHub, which found that 63% of respondents said they were now saving more of the money they earned.

“We’ve seen a lot of panic buying as a result of the coronavirus, with people purchasing things like toilet paper en masse, largely because they don’t know what else to do,” said WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez. “Less apparent, however, is the panic saving that people are engaged in right now. If there’s a bright side to all of this, people saving more money than usual might just be it.”