A common theme insideARM has been tracking for the past few years is the shrinking pipeline of consumer debt for the accounts receivable management industry. It’s been easy to point to the massive decline in credit card debt, once the reliable lifeblood of debt collectors, and warn of fewer accounts coming down the pipe from that sector (in fact, we did just that last year in an issue of Know Your Debtor).
But now there is more evidence that there could be less debt entering the third party collection system in coming years. From 2007 to 2010, the median debt of households headed by an adult younger than 35 fell by 29 percent, compared with a decline of just 8 percent among households headed by adults ages 35 and older, according to a report from the Pew Research Center.
Furthermore, the share of younger households holding debt of any kind fell to 78 percent, the lowest level since the government began collecting such data in 1983.
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