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Market Pulse is a monthly podcast by Equifax, in partnership with Moody’s Analytics. Equifax hosts bring you interviews with industry experts on the latest economic and credit insights that can help drive better business decisions. Whether you’re in financial, mortgage, auto or another service industry, we help make sense of the latest economic conditions that impact you. This podcast series supplements our Market Pulse webinars, which occur on the first Thursday of each month.
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Welcome to the Market
Pulse podcast from Equifax,
where we break down the latest economic
and credit insights to help you navigate
today's business landscape.
Welcome to the Market Pulse
Podcast. I'm your host, Dave Sojka,
a member of the Equifax Advisory Team.
The Equifax advisors align strategy and
execution by translating economic and
industry trends into practical Equifax,
data backed insights and stories.
We equip executives with data-driven
narratives to make clear,
strategic and tactical
decisions. In other words,
we don't just study the economy, we
operationalize it for a competitive edge.
I want to welcome our team of
experts I've gathered today,
our fearless leader and eyewear
fashionista, Emmaline Aliff
resident economist and connoisseur
of coffee, Jesse Hardin,
Market Pulse Index guru and flight
sim enthusiast, Tom O'Neill.
And finally, student loan
expert and mata aficionado,
Maria Urtubey. Welcome everyone.
Welcome Dave.
Dave. Hey there.
To kind of get us started,
I'd like us all to think about
what's one major triple event
you're excited for the rest
of the year, and it can't be work related.
Come October, I am going to be a
grandfather for the first time.
Oh, woo.
That's awesome. Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you.
You have a new, you have a
new level of credibility now.
. That's right. These gray hairs
are, are, they continue to be earned.
Alright.
So I will add a new adjective to
your introduction as to grandpa.
I think the sub question for Tom
is what's your name going to be?
Is it going to be grampy or grumpy or.
For you guys? for you
guys it will be Tom .
Did Tom for my, for my daughter?
It will, it will. Well, no,
I'm not going to tell you guys because
then you're going to use it. Oh, no. And,
and for the kid, , it's,
it's pretty much going to be whatever
the child wants to call me. .
Yeah. I think you have to let them
choose. We've got a trip planned.
I waited for gas prices to
get as high as possible,
and then we want to do
like a 2000 mile road trip.
So we are going to go from
Texas to Maine and back.
We'll, we'll see if we end up making
it up there and or making it back.
That's, that's impressive. Jesse.
I like the way that you put you
put some of these topics that we
discussed around affordability and
financial stress to practical use.
That's nice.
Yeah. It's quite, quite nerdy.
Right. We are going to visit,
I think a few colleges.
I've got a freshman going
into sophomore student.
So we're going to take a look at a few
colleges, maybe from here to there.
Maybe understand the economics
of the college situation.
, sadly enough. Yeah.
Had a few going through
myself. Yeah. I think for me,
I'm just looking forward to being
outside the Atlanta area is very
robust activities during
the summertime activity.
And of course I spend a
lot of my time working,
so getting outside and
having a good time is fun.
Going back to the college topic my
eldest, my daughter is graduating.
So we'll be driving in June
down to Southern California for
her graduation.
And my parents are coming to visit for
that specific event and celebration.
So it should be fun.
Congratulations. Wow. Yeah. Got
a lot of big things happening.
And Dave.
So my oldest, my son is
getting married in June.
And what's unique too,
I was asked to also give
the best man speech.
Wow.
So I have to think about
how do I roast my son
mildly, but also celebrate
the wonderful event that it's,
that the wedding will be. So.
Amongst all of us, we've got most of,
like life's major chapters
covered for this, this we've got,
you know, yeah.
Child's doing the college exploration.
We've got one graduating college,
we've got grandkids on the
way. We've got marriages,
and Emmmaline might make
it outside. So, you know,
I think we've got a lot of
like major chapters covered.
As we head into the middle of Q2.
Right. We just started in May.
We've all been out and about
at conferences at client sites,
as well as during our Market Pulse
webinars and have gathered questions that
you, our lovely audience have been
asking. But before we do that,
I'd like to quickly turn to
Justin Begley from Moody's,
who will give us a quick update on
where some of the important economic and
consumer trend metrics stand.
US economic growth accelerated in the
first quarter of 2026 as government
activity rebounded from the drag caused
by the record long government shutdown
in the previous quarter.
The conflict in the Middle East began to
take a toll only in the final weeks of
the quarter. So it had little
impact on overall growth.
Any negative impact that it did have
was offset by stimulus from the one big
beautiful bill. Real GDP grew
2% on an annualized basis,
up from 0.5% in the fourth quarter.
Non-Residential fixed
investments, exports,
consumer spending and government spending
were the largest drivers of growth in
the first quarter. But the
inventory also contributed.
Some imports, however,
were a major drag and residential
investment was a minor drag.
And while not explicitly await on growth,
yet the conflict in Iran has
caused inflation to surge.
The PCE Deflator jumped 0.7% in March,
and the monthly increases thanks to a
21% increase in the price of gasoline
and other energy goods.
And on a year ago basis,
the rate of inflation rose
from 2.8% in February to 3.5%.
Now, another big price jump
is not coming in April,
but neither is an offsetting correction.
Despite some temporary
reprieve here and there.
Oil prices remained elevated
throughout the month,
and unleaded gasoline prices in
the US have on average held above
$4 per gallon. As a result, monetary
policy makers are sitting on their hands.
The Federal Open Market Committee voted
to keep the Fed funds rate unchanged at
their April meeting with an
upper bound of about 3.75%.
But uncertainty about the outcome of
the conflict and its macroeconomic
consequences is high.
And four voting members dissented from
the majority's decision, not since 1992,
has a meeting, had so many objections,
but fractious as the FOMC may appear
near term policy decisions will actually
be pretty easy in the coming months.
Given inflation's trend in 2026,
when we put our may
baseline forecast together,
we're likely going to push back
the timing of the next rate cut.
Our April forecast anticipated 1
25 basis point cut in December.
But oil prices are approaching their
highest points since the crisis began.
And a durable resolution is
difficult to imagine at this point.
Thanks, Justin. The health of the
US consumer is deeply bifurcated,
characterized by a K-shaped reality,
where total consumer debt has climbed to
almost 3% year over year. As of March,
prime borrowers are actively
leveraging their wealth.
Underserved populations are heavily
reliant on high cost alternative debt and
mounting financial stress is creating
cracks in consumer resilience,
pretty pretty light topic. So with that,
we'll dive into some questions
and themes. So starting off,
one of the questions we've gotten
now that the DOJ has dropped their
investigation into Chairman Powell,
what might we expect from
the new nominee? Kevin Walsh,
who's going to take that one?
Dave, I'll take that one. And I
know I've got a time limit here.
There's so many things to
think about with respect to
chairman Walsh or potential chairman
Walsh coming in. I would say, you know,
it stands to keep in mind that
he is one vote on a panel of,
of 12 voters.
So to think that there's going to be a
large scale change in the behavior or
makeup of the, the Fed is, is probably
you know, not going to happen.
I would say probably a
couple things to think about.
So the idea around trimming the
Fed's balance sheet it seems to be
a focus also looking at things
like trim mean inflation.
So the idea that you cut the tails off
of inflation and really kind of look at
what's core to the movement of
inflation. So some, you know,
large ideas, I think. But again,
keeping in mind that it's one vote.
And there's, you know, there's
others. And in fact, we heard it,
Chairman Powell's going
to stay on in his role.
So so I do think we're going to get,
probably continue to see fireworks
from that side of the of the aisle.
You know, as, as we've been discussing
over the last several market pulses.
You know, if we're, say if we're
looking at the entire country, if we're,
if our clients are looking
at their entire portfolios,
they might be missing something,
right? The details matter.
And one thing I think is kind
of, would be kind of interesting,
since all of us are are in different
parts of the country you know,
I think it'd be kind of cool for
our audience to hear briefly,
kind of what do we, you know,
what is the housing market doing
in our parts of the country?
You want to go west to east or east
to west? What do you guys feel like?
.
Probably go southeast, first.
Southeast to? So you go southeast to
northwest way to way to be contrarian.
All right. All right.
So in Atlanta I think it's kind of
interesting and I'm always looking
for things like this because it's like,
is there a time when I do I want
to change my housing situation,
downsize upsize? Probably not
upsize as my kids get older.
But I think what's interesting is
that it's kind of shifted away from
more of the high growth,
bargain based city that it used
to be like when I moved here.
It was very you know, changing
from an affordability standpoint,
and it's kind of evolved into something
that's more tighter in terms of
inventory and more of a seller's
market. And, and I know we,
we've probably done, we've
been chatting about, you know,
comparing housing prices with you know,
there's the higher plateau
median of around four 17 K
now. And, and it's, it's
kind of interesting how I,
and what we probably would talk about
this a little bit more too, is the,
the bifurcation of Atlanta with
the the more tech cluster in the
upper suburbs which would in the market
Pulse Index would be more like the upper
end of the K. And then, you know,
there's different locations
that are experiencing you know,
different housing on
other areas of the city.
Then I can cover Texas.
So I'm actually east Texas-based
and closest to Dallas.
So I'll maybe give two opinions.
First, I would say where, where I'm at,
it seems like there's a lot
of stagnant inventory. So,
still homes trying to be sold,
maybe not as many buyers for those,
that sounds like people are still
kind of just in a wait and see mode.
If you think of Dallas
more as a metro area,
it seems like we are seeing still the,
the growth of incoming households
from other areas. So, you know,
California, New York,
we've had a lot of new corporations move
into the Dallas area from places like
that.
And so I think we've seen families still
kind of pouring into that metro area,
which means the, you know,
the labor or the housing supply seems
like it is pretty tight in those areas.
I'm in California, in Northern California,
and here there is a severe
housing crisis, low supply,
very high costs in San Jose
and San Francisco, for example,
with average housing
prices exceeding 1 million,
and on the rental front,
households needing three times
the state minimum wage to
afford average asking rent.
So that perpetuates holding
the lowest home ownership
rate of the nation.
It adds to the already high
homelessness situation and pushes,
going back to what Jesse shared,
some residents to look for
opportunities in other states.
I guess I'm next Midwest. So
I'm in the Chicagoland area,
western suburbs. So the Illinois
market is really a, you know,
a seller's market. I think
something that, you know,
Jesse touched on in Texas as well.
You know, rising home prices,
low inventory you know,
buyer negotiation power has
improved slightly more recently
you know, the statewide
mediated home price,
which is going to sound really
strange, is only $314,000,
which is up about 4.5%. But if we
think about, you know, just like,
you know,
there are two co there are two coasts
in the middle when ESPN talks about the
country you know, it is not just
Chicago. It's not only Illinois.
So obviously while there's higher
prices in the Chicagoland area,
the greater Illinois area
statewide is much, it's much lower.
So kind of closing high mortgage rates,
high prices challenging en environment,
especially for first time home buyers.
Yeah. And I'll I'll finish things
up. I'm, I'm out here in the,
the DC area in northern
Virginia, and I think it,
on the one hand, it's
interesting because we,
we see what a lot of the
major metropolitan areas
see where, you know, the,
the city itself is kind of sluggish. DC
market is sluggish, but the suburbs are,
are still pretty hot.
But one of the things that I find most
interesting about this particular market,
everyone pretty much knows that
DC is a, a very transient area,
a lot of people moving
in government, military
and yet we are also feeling the
impact of the lock-in effect of
people that locked into mortgages a few
years ago and don't want to leave that.
So you have this force keeping
people put in a very transient area.
And what we're seeing is the rental
market for these houses kind of
exploding, you know? And people, instead
of selling their house when they leave,
they're now renting it.
And so it's a very interesting
dynamic that we haven't seen before.
Hey, one of the things I just realized
that I probably should have included,
but you know, we still see
these data centers, these, the,
the proliferation of data centers,
and I think that's been
set kind of interesting.
I mentioned the suburbs
around DC still pretty hot.
That's one of the main reasons why,
at least here in Northern Virginia,
we're right outside Loudoun County,
you know, data center capital right.
And that is definitely one of the things
driving the, the heat of that market.
Well.
Thank you audience.
Hopefully you enjoyed a little
regional perspective from the advisors.
So actually going to take a little,
a little more hands-on here,
this next question. We've
had several lenders ask us,
how do we get ahead of a more proactively
managed delinquencies or charge offs
among the vehicle loan market?
Do we need a buzzer to
buzz in on this? .
, I'd.
Like to go first if I can.
There's my buzzer, of course,
that is an area that we've been studying
you know, quite a bit. You know, we,
we have been drilling
into the k-shaped economy,
especially at the consumer level
and the shrinking middle of that
distribution. And like where,
specifically when we think about subprime
delinquencies and, and auto space,
we know that they are at an pretty
much an all time high but they're still
top of the payment hierarchy
when it comes to paying an auto.
So the place that I would look at to
get ahead of a, any form of delinquency,
regardless of portfolio mix is
what's happening like in different
asset classes for example, that lead into
into the auto payment. So credit
cards you know, for example,
like what is happening
with the delinquency levels
there and the utilization,
because we know over time that we've
studied that one of the leading indicators
for delinquencies on other asset classes
like auto is, you know, have the,
has the utilization risen
on their credit card,
and they don't have as much liquid
credit available to cover any monthly
expenses that have been increasing.
I think this is going to be kind of
interesting as well as we were kind of
addressing costs of things.
Is the change in debt to income
a predictor of consumer score migration?
And I'll let you guys take
this any way you see fit.
Yeah, I, I could, I could kick that one
off. I'll, I'll give a short answer yes,
and then I'll follow up with my
customary, but it depends because that's,
that's not a sweeping
statement. I, the, yes,
we do see a definite pos
correlation between rising DTI
and, and shifts in credit score
that just, that stands to reason,
but it's not just a
blanket statement. There's,
there's different types of debts
that are very much in play here.
There's a difference between
rising revolving debt and say,
a mortgage debt that has very
different characteristics.
And even within those subgroups is,
is revolving debt rising
chronically? Yeah.
Over time signifying more and more
stress that that consumer might be under?
Or is it a onetime increase for
a planned purchase that they had?
And quite frankly, even in the,
the mortgage scenario
that I laid out, you know,
the fact that that market
is changing, where,
you know, housing expenses used
to be expected to be about 30%,
it's now 40% even that population is,
is under more stress that you really
have to look broader than just what's on
the, the file to to get a sense of.
Yeah, I, I think DTI is written
at a policy for a reason,
and all the reasons are laid out the
way you described there, Tom with like,
you know, high DTI in particular,
having the historic, you know,
when we see that as it rises
in, in those categories that we,
we typically see in the next year
to year and a half as they exhaust,
you know, potential their liquidity it,
it will have some form of you know,
impact to liquid credit they might have.
And I would add last that 40 is a
new 30 that to was referring to.
And that DTI debt to income calculation
is critical, not just for mortgages. We,
we keep hearing that and we
know credit risk is not enough,
and there are other aspects of the
consumer profile such as payment capacity
that plays such an important role as
well. So we have to keep that in mind.
Thank you all that was really in
depth, I think, and hopefully our,
those that have asked that question
are getting some good tidbits here.
Kind of taking again,
a wider view again is the K-shaped economy
still an appropriate characterization
in 2026,
given that wage growth for both the top
and bottom halves have converged to the
same level about 3.7%
through February of 26?
I can start out with that. And then Tom,
I'd love to hear your thoughts
based on market pulse index,
but maybe I'll steal
Tom's response. Yes. But,
so I do think the K shape is still,
we still see that divergence
towards the middle.
So I still think Ks shape is real,
but it's also kind of an
academic exercise really,
in terms of what you want to call
it. I think it either it's K or E,
but what it means is
that there is a you know,
a real pattern forming with challenge
and Dave, like you mentioned,
the wage growth that wage growth,
that average wage growth is
staying right above zero.
But that, you know, that sort of
means, if you think of averages,
that means that some wage growth is
below. And so we still see that you know,
that concern in the middle you know,
sort of the divergence from the middle
towards the bottom tail. And so I really,
whether you call it K
or e, I really you know,
still think an area of
focus and should still be.
Yeah. I fully agree. And,
I agree with, yeah, it's,
it's less important to put a label
such as K, you know, on this. What's,
what's important is what
that, that visual represents,
and that's the trajectory of
these different consumers.
because That's really what, what we,
and lenders and people within the
FI fields overall are concerned
about. Just like, are these individuals,
are these households strengthening
their financial position,
or are they sliding into
more and more stress?
And that's where, as Jesse's
points out, looking at averages,
it's not going to cut it anymore. I
mean, if we say, Hey, 3.7% wage growth,
great, but that's 1% for some people,
or negative percent for some people,
and it's 5% or 10% for others.
And for, for some populations,
that means that they're under more and
more stress. And for other populations,
it means that they, they've got more
financial opportunities, welcome to 'em.
And right now with credit
scores and, and income bans,
it's hard to tell those
two populations apart.
Yeah, I was in conversation with
my kids about the socio economy.
I know a fun dinner conversation with
my teenagers, but they, they referred,
they told me when I said that I
think we're in the K shaped economy.
They said maybe we're in a six,
seven shaped economy in which I thought
was kind of funny based on all the Gen Z
comments.
For the old watching, watching at home.
Outdoors. Yeah. This is why you
need to get outside more Em .
Yeah, it's, but it's, but there's,
there's absolutely been, I,
I think the point about that is the,
the labeling sometimes can reduce the
meaning of what's actually happening.
And to those points, like we,
we know that middle classes
compressed to some degree. And,
we've already talked about some of these
things with housing and insurance costs
and things like that.
If we looked at let's say
auto and personal loan,
and we can include any
portfolio here, you know,
are we seeing any regional differences?
Yeah, maybe I can get
started. With the Auto 60
and more days due balanced
delinquency, for example,
all regions except for the West, have
experienced year over year declines,
just as we have observed at the national
level with a 1.3% year over year
improvement. Within that context, though,
the west is the only region with a
delinquency rate below that national
average the Midwest,
the Northeast and the South
are all at or above the 1.5%
delinquency rate. We
observed overall as of March,
in the case of personal loan, for example,
delinquencies have declined
year over urinal regions.
And while showing this improvement,
the south is tracking above
the 3.2 delinquency rate
at 3.8%. So those are two.
Examples. Yeah, that's,
that's an interesting point about Atlanta
or the Atlanta, the South in general.
You know, when you were, you know,
speaking about that. And so when,
when we look at things, we oftentimes,
do you see that the southeast region,
there's oftentimes spikes in
auto personal loan that will
lead the national trends by
typically a quarter or so.
So I found that interesting. You know,
in particular on some of the,
the leading edge cases and
how delinquencies do differ
as you were describing.
Okay. going back to our,
our chairman Powell,
a lot of questions about him recently,
he stated that the level of
borrowing and debt is not sustainable
at what point with this
adversely affect the economy.
And I do want to just quickly point
out as of yesterday, the 30th of April,
US debt now exceeds a
hundred percent of GDP.
It hit a hundred 0.2%.
Yeah, I, again, I can,
I can start that one at least I feel
like I lobbed the grenade and then run
away. What I would say
is I think, you know,
if I think of it in context of
maybe finance and opportunity cost,
certainly at a high debt level, there's
an opportunity cost for that decision.
And so I think we're seeing that
today. Whether you, you know,
you talk about the a
hundred percent threshold,
if you think of the fact that
government investment crowds out private
investment, that, you know, that
can certainly be a concern also,
the rising interest rate sensitivity
and what a higher debt load does to,
you know, to that that concern.
So I think we're probably
starting to feel, and,
and probably have felt for a while,
the effects of carrying high debt.
You can debate the academics
of whether, you know,
one number is too high or not, but
I, I think we're probably, you know,
feeling that effect and we're going to
make some hard decisions and really have
to make some hard decisions moving forward
about how you start to minimize that,
you know, that debt load.
And thanks, Jesse. Kind of taking
that a little bit further now.
So as we have been engaging
with our lenders, you know, our,
our partners, you know, what should
they be looking out for? How, how would,
you know, kind of what
Jesse just kind of laid out,
how's that going to impact the bank
or a credit union or finance company?
Anyone else want to chime in here?
Well, certainly it, the cost of borrowing
is, going to be an impact. And if
whatever levels, whether,
whether that a hundred percent
of GDP is some emotional
threshold,
that that causes a reaction one way
or the other is to be determined.
But,
but as the debt levels continue
to be in focus and start
to have an impact on macroeconomic
policies and choices,
certainly the cost of borrowing is going
to be something that lenders will need
to take a close eye on.
Yeah, I think, I think taking the,
that thing down to the individual
level for what directly could be
impacting them,
as we oftentimes see that impacts
directly through interest rates,
which is of course, you
know, some impact and,
but it's part of the equation
for the cost of money and
any form of credit crunch that might
exist from repricing debt especially
with banks,
if they do hold government
debt as a safety mechanism
for their overall reserves
and, and things like that.
So those are the things that I I guess
when I hear about that, that I start,
you know, considering what could the
impact be with respect to the decisions,
you know, the Fed might make.
Something very top of
mind to a lot of people.
Key point here,
should the war with Iran
continue to drag on what are the
anticipated effects on oil prices?
And we'll touch on auto
sales as well here.
I mean, I would say, you know,
just from a macro perspective,
just thinking about what it
means to see higher oil prices
I think there's some rules of
thumb that at for every you know,
for every 40 dollar increase in
the price of oil, we, you know,
we tend to see a real impact over
a dollar per gallon impact on
households. We can see you know,
that translates to a thousand dollars
for an average household over the course
of a year. So it is, it is impactful,
especially as you think of the,
the context of the K and what
we talked about, you know, that,
that growing middle and, and how
that impacts the growing middle.
Yeah, the,
I think the price of the pump is the
closest thing for impact immediately
that we would observe. That's when
we talk about individual cash flow.
And so watching that of
course is, is important,
but the long-term impacts for the
lending business is a little bit more you
know, difficult. But I think
sentiment, of course, is you know,
is of course deeply impacted by you
know, these things that are happening.
I would just follow up from
that statement is like, yes,
the price at the pump is the most
immediate and perhaps the most visceral
effect, but
it's important to keep in mind
that rising oil prices have
a very broad inflationary impact.
Everything that requires oil to
be produced, to be shipped for us,
you know, to where we
can consume it. Yeah.
All of these things are
impacted by rising oil prices.
It's not just the pump though that
mm-hmm . Again, is,
is what everyone sees the
moment they step outdoors.
Yeah. America runs on oil and
coffee, right? That's right.
. There you go. And you have to
get the oil to go get your coffee slogan.
Unless you're Jesse higher than
you have to worry about it.
Dave, I did.
I think I just completely glossed over
the last part of that question about auto
sales. And I do think, you know, we,
we've seen preferences certainly
with auto sales sort of
ebb and flow,
it seems like there was adoption
of ev and then maybe less you know,
less interest in EV would be interesting
to see what happens with with EV if we
do see longer than, than usual
increases in gas prices. But overall,
it seems like Americans on the
whole seem to seem to like their
ice vehicles. So I think that, you know,
there could be a somewhat of a
disconnect there for a while.
Alright, so again, continuing our theme
on, you know, it's not just the average
here's a question.
How are different income groups being
impacted by rising inflation of goods and
services?
, I, I'll, I'll
start off with that and,
and I'm glad that I started
off this session by,
by announcing that I'm going
to be a grandpa because now,
now I can play my grumpy old man,
you know, routine and say, you know,
back in my day things used to be
pretty straightforward. You know,
inflation would rise and we
could say, here's the, the,
the groups that are going to be impacted
first and most severely and you just
can't do that the same way anymore.
Yeah. Even the, the housing,
you know, discussion that
we had earlier, that's,
that's a good example where
you think of homeowners and,
and higher income tier
groups as kind of immune to,
or more immune, I should say, to
rising inflation. But even there,
we're seeing the stress, you know, we
see homeowners, even those locked in at,
at low rates are feeling
the pinch of rising
property insurance and, you know,
property taxes and the non-mortgage
aspects of, of owning a home.
And if groups like that,
that historically are,
are less sensitive to
inflationary pressures,
if they're feeling the
impact, then, you know,
that's kind of indicative
of how hard it is to say,
here's where the pinch is going to
be felt because it could be anywhere.
Yeah. I, you know,
to the point that the grumpy old
man self proclaims was making
that, that divergence is, you know,
really to me when I think about that
in this particular case is about how
you know, how inflation differs, but it's
oftentimes the capacity to absorb it.
And you know,
we may see that any form of expenditure
growth can dictate the shape of
those curves is the top end that are
outpacing inflation and able to absorb
in the bottom end of
the K that are, are not,
and things become more challenging.
Alright, so oh, this is interesting,
a topic that alone that
we really haven't talked,
we don't think much about but it's
been in the news a lot, student loans.
And really question is,
has there been a change in the
performance of student loan delinquency?
I think our,
I think we have a guru that can
answer this question trend is up again
recall that while the balance 90
or more days past due delinquency,
which is how we track student loans
and first mortgages, it stands at 17%.
So it's below the, over 9%,
below the all-time high of May
of last year. And similarly,
the unit stands at 23 and
is over seven or at 7%.
Below that peak
delinquencies as of March of
2026 are on their fourth
month over month increase.
So we have to keep going back,
we have to go back to thinking about
them and evaluating how they impact
consumers. Thanks, Maria. Oh, okay.
This is an interesting question here.
VantageScore clusters for separate
segments of the K economy. Who,
who can help us with that one?
So with VantageScore clusters, you know,
we have talked about the khap economy.
What's interesting about that in
particular is that different components
as they feed into, as we're, you know,
when we examine these through the market
pulse index in particular to help shape
what things look like credit score
VantageScore 4.0 in particular is
part of what we study in that. And we
have seen on the lower end some you know,
stabilization with that population.
A lot of that has to do with
a condensing of that those
groups where if someone has a
delinquency like we described already,
they're more likely to
have other delinquencies.
So that subprime population has
shrunk from about 26% going back five,
six years ago down to you know,
hovering around 19 to 20% now. So the,
there's been some stabilization,
but mainly that's because their credit
scores can't really get much worse.
Okay. I think that we've got
time for one more question and
you know, advisors, Equifax employees,
statisticians, flight sim
gurus, coffee, fish. Yes.
But we're also all consumers,
right? And so yeah,
as we've laid out the story of choice
that many Americans are having to make,
I'm going to ask each of the advisors,
what's the one thing that you
aren't willing to give up,
even in a challenging economy?
I, you know, I was trying, when, when
you mentioned this, it's like, ooh,
what could it be? And I thought the first
thing that came to my mind is my hair.
Not that you can tell right now,
but that's the one thing I
splurge highlights special blow
drying. I'm not giving
that up. It's my one. Yeah.
You'll, I, I totally agree.
It is expensive. You'll.
Be shocked to know that that was not
the first thing that came to my mind.
Maria , no.
no. My, my, my haircare was,
was not top of mind. .
. Well,
to use the phrase we had to make some
cuts at the CICA household with repair
policy. .
What.
Is your, when it comes to that, you
know, we see the areas to cut back on.
Oh, what is yours, Tom?
My, I actually, I'm going to
go all sappy and I'm going to,
I'm going to continue the grandfather
thing, because quite frankly,
I am going to be spoiling
this kid . And, and
that is the one area that
I am looking forward to
doing. And even if even,
and we, Lord knows baby stuff
is already expensive, ,
but even if, even if
that continues to go up,
I'm not missing this opportunity
to to sort of enjoy this and
spoil the kid rotten.
Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah,
I think there's so many things that I
could say and so many things that I know
that y'all are aware of that
I can't live without. But the,
the thing I would talk about is what
Dave opened with my glasses. You know,
just having, having readers
and the, the price of readers,
these are very much a disposable item.
, I lose them, I misplace them,
they break. But fortunately
I have several of them.
But in order for me to continue doing
what we do, I've gotta have them.
And they're all very stylish.
Thank you.
I have to say Tom, you surprised
me. I was going with with the,
the Belgian nails for you,
since you since you're a beer.
Official. You know, if, if I didn't, if
I didn't have a grandchild on the way,
that probably would be it. Yeah.
There you go. Maybe.
Both.
.
Yeah, actually, yeah, there's, yeah.
There's room for both. Yeah.
Yeah. That's where I was going to go.
I was going to say I really
can't narrow it down to one.
So I would say what Dave said,
coffee, I'm not going to,
I'm not going to lit up, let up
on my, my single origin coffee.
I think the other is beef. So
thinking about beef, I can't got,
I gotta have a steak
every once in a while.
So we've seen those prices kind
of wildly spike up and down.
So maybe I'll go with those two.
Fortunately, you live in
the ranch or country. Yeah.
Yeah. Just go down the street, right? And.
Dave?
Yeah. Dave, what about you?
Yeah.
Me. It's going to be premium cigars. So
obviously, you know, we all work hard.
We need to play hard
every once in a while too.
And there's nothing that helps me relax
and, and enjoy the company of,
of, of friends than a nice cigar.
And so I would say it's a way to unwind
and it's a way to connect with another
human being no matter where
you're from, what you do.
It brings us all together. I think with
that, we'll call it a podcast. Yeah.
I want to thank my panel. There's
a lot of information we covered.
I had fun. I think we all
had fun. Hopefully you,
the audience will enjoy this as well.
So thanks, Emmaline, Jesse, Tom,
and Maria for joining me.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Dave. And then to our listeners, I
really hope you enjoyed today's topic.
If you have other questions or
suggestions for future podcasts,
you can reach advisors@equifax.com.
We look forward to hearing from you.
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