Volunteer State News

Spokesperson and League of American Workers founder Steve Cortes took to social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, to express his disbelief in response to a recent JD Power press release reporting the increasing amount of debt the average American has taken on amidst surging inflation rates and costs of living.

"Will America become a country of indebted serfs???" Cortes wrote in an Aug. 27 post on X. "For the first time ever, the majority of Credit Card customers rollover their debt monthly rather than pay their balances. Savings plunge, Interest Rates surge, and citizens lean dangerously on borrowing."

In his post, Cortes attached a screenshot of the press release, which featured the headline “Credit Card Issuers must Confront Consumers’ Mounting Debt” to summarize recent findings of the J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction Study, released on Aug. 17. 

The study found that “51% of U.S. credit cardholders now carry revolving debt at an average overall self-reported interest rate of 14.8%.”

“The pandemic-era savings cushions are gone, the economy is shaky and consumers are leaning more heavily than ever on their credit cards to cover day-to-day expenses,” JD Power representative John Cabell said in the study. “This is a make-or-break moment for card issuers.” The study showed decreased levels of satisfaction with rewards programs for various cards, as well as the low percentage of only 11% of financially unhealthy cardholders strongly agreeing that their card helps them control spending. American Express was ranked the highest in customer satisfaction this year, with Bank and America and Discover coming in tied at second place.

Cortes, who is also a spokesperson for Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, founded the League of American Workers (LAW) to help curb the toxic leadership of labor unions that claim to protect the everyday American worker. “LAW uses incisive and original research and communicates it powerfully to change the conversation and tilt the paradigm back toward workers,” according to the organization's website.