THE COLOR OF MONEY
Bankruptcy experts offer insights on debt to young adults

By Michelle Singletary

WASHINGTON — I think it's safe to say most people would prefer to never have to see a bankruptcy attorney or judge.

However, there is a group of bankruptcy professionals that you should rejoice in having your high school and college students see if they ever have the chance. They are volunteers for a relatively new outreach program called CARE (Credit Abuse Resistance Education). CARE was founded two years ago by John C. Ninfo II, chief judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of New York.

Ninfo's idea is to send bankruptcy professionals — judges, attorneys and trustees (the folks that handle the administration of bankruptcy cases) — into high schools and colleges all over the country to share their personal experiences dealing with people who have filed for bankruptcy protection.

What a brilliant idea.

Who better to counsel young people about the perils of overspending than the professionals who have to deal with the aftermath? In the case of Ninfo, he literally has a front-row seat to the devastation that credit card debt can wreak on families.

"I sat day after day in my courtroom and watched people come in with one, two and three times their annual income in credit card debt," the judge said in an interview. "We in the bankruptcy community are in the trenches and can tell (these students) first hand about the reality of it all."

And the reality is that an unbelievable number of young people are finding themselves in deep debt before they hit their mid-30s.

One research group calls this group "Generation Broke."

The fact is America's population of young adults aged 18-34 are slipping into a downward debt spiral, according to Demos, a nonpartisan, non-profit New York-based research organization.

Demos recently released a report called "Generation Broke: The Growth of Debt Among Young Americans." Here's what the organization found among young adults aged 25 to 34 after analyzing the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances and dozens of other sources:

• The average credit card debt increased 55 percent between 1992 and 2001 to $4,088.

• Credit card debt among the youngest adults (aged 18-24) skyrocketed 104 percent during this same period to $2,985.

• Seventy-one percent of young credit cardholders revolve their balances every month, compared to 55 percent of all cardholders.

• The average young-adult household spends almost one quarter of every dollar earned on debt payments.

And the most troubling finding: Americans aged 25-34 have the second highest rate of bankruptcy (just after those aged 35 to 44), indicating that Gen-Xers were more likely to file for bankruptcy than were baby boomers when they were that age.

"Young adults starting off in the red will find that it impacts their financial security for years to come," said Tamara Draut, director of the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos and lead author of the report.

Ninfo believes bankruptcy professionals are uniquely positioned to educate young people about the causes and consequences of credit card debt. The judge wanted specifically to target high school and college students to catch them before they make the same mistakes of the bankrupt individuals he sees in his courtroom.

Since it began in 2002, the Care Program has reached more than 10,000 students in Rochester, N.Y., and Ninfo is working to expand the program nationwide. Parts of the program have been started in nearly 30 cities, including Anchorage, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City (Missouri), Lexington and Miami. Ninfo wants a CARE program in every bankruptcy district in the country.

CARE is expanding so check the "Schedule a Presentation" link on the organization's Web site to see if there are volunteers in your area.

For additional information, or if you're a bankruptcy professional and you want to start a CARE program, contact Ninfo at jninfonywb.uscourts.gov or call him at (585) 613-4200.

Michelle Singletary writes for the Washington Post.