Consumer credit increase a good sign for practice owners

If you want to know how your veterinary clients are faring financially as of late, here’s an update. Financial experts agree it’s a good sign that consumer credit has increased and it’s a reflection that household debt obligations are finally returning to a more normal relationship to household income. This could have an effect on consumer spending.

Even so, now’s not the time to assume that the economy has returned to normal, says Steven Kyle, professor of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. On the positive side, he says, household debt obligations as a ratio to disposable income are in the 12 percent range, which is comparable to what we saw in the mid-1990s. The precipitous drop in household debt since two or three years ago shows that there is an end to this long and dark tunnel—it’s just going to take awhile to climb out of it.