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September 4, 2024, Berkeley, CA — The nonpartisan California Policy Lab posted updated data to the California Credit Dashboard today, with data through the end of June 2024.
“Student loan borrowers are making monthly payments that are about 40% lower, on average, as compared to before the pandemic,” explains Evan White, Executive Director of the California Policy Lab’s UC Berkeley site, and a member of the research team that created and maintains the dashboard. “That’s likely due to federal efforts to enroll more borrowers into income-driven repayment plans, however several pending court cases may up-end those efforts.”
The Dashboard includes a new California Financial Trends snapshot showing how recent changes in credit scores, delinquencies, monthly payments, and new loan amounts compare to the previous quarter, the same quarter 1 year ago, 5 years ago, and 10 years ago.
3 trends in Q2, 2024:
Student loan payments in June were 40% lower on average than their levels before the pandemic: The average monthly student-loan bill in California was $39 in June 2024, as compared to $65 in March 2020. Payments were smaller, even though the average amount owed has been increasing. This is likely due to federal efforts, including enrolling 8 million borrowers into the new “SAVE” income-driven repayment plan. However, in response to legal challenges, in July, the Education Department temporarily suspended the SAVE plan and put SAVE borrowers into an administrative forbearance indefinitely, meaning payments aren’t due, and their interest rate is 0% until the legal situation is resolved. The pandemic payment pause ended in September 2023, though some borrowers are having their loan payments “paused” again (by the forbearance) due to the court challenges. See more
New auto loan amounts (for a new or used car) are down substantially since the end of 2022: In December 2022, the average new car loan was $35,800, but the size of loans has been mostly decreasing since then, and the average origination in June 2024 was $32,000 (down 10.6%). See more.
New mortgage amounts continue to climb, up $31,000 (5.1%) from last quarter: The average new mortgage amount in California in the second quarter of 2024 was $637,000. Volumes were still low, but interest rates have declined since June, so next quarter may see volumes rise. See more
See additional trends on the California Financial Trends snapshot.
California Credit Dashboard: Insights into Californians’ Financial Health
The interactive Dashboard includes 10 longitudinal charts for 6 types of debt (auto, credit card, home equity, mortgage, student, and other) and collections. The 10 figures can be sorted by 7 age groups, 9 economic regions, and 5 credit ratings. The Dashboard also includes 4 county-level maps which can be filtered by generation, loan type, credit score, and timeframe (2004 to present).
Using the interactive the maps, users can compare:
- Delinquency rates
- New loan amounts
- Monthly payments
- Credit score trends
Note: The California Policy Lab’s Data Point, Introducing the California Credit Dashboard, shows examples of how the figures can be adjusted to show differences by region, generation, and credit ratings.
More about the California Credit Dashboard
The Dashboard uses credit-bureau data from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel. All figures in the Dashboard are based on a 2% random sample of individuals. Where applicable, the results are multiplied by 50 to obtain the full-population estimate. A technical appendix provides detailed information about the data and underlying research. Several dozen faculty and graduate students from the University of California currently use this dataset for research.
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The California Policy Lab is a research institute based at the University of California that generates insights for government impact. Through hands-on partnerships with government agencies, CPL performs rigorous research across issue silos and builds the data infrastructure necessary to improve programs and policies that millions of Californians rely on every day.