THE RICH REALLY ARE LIKE US- IN DEBT
May 5, 2005
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Adding to the nation’s personal-debt load, wealthy people have been borrowing increasingly against their homes, stocks and businesses to fund purchases and investments, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Private bankers and wealth managers say that borrowing among the richest Americans has grown in the past few years as interest rates have remained historically low. The richest 1 percent of American households — or those with more than $5.9 million in net worth — had $346 billion in debt in 2001, up $50 billion from 1998, according to the most recent data compiled by Arthur Kennickell, a senior economist with the Federal Reserve, the newspaper reported.
