Recent credit and financial health reports show that South Africans are struggling to maintain their standard of living, especially the middle-class workers.
These issues have put unreasonable pressure on the average South African consumer, who is facing the brunt of increased interest rates and fuel prices and is expected to pay more for their food because of inflation.Research and analytics firm Eighty20, in its latest Credit Stress Report, defined middle-class workers as those households with an income of nearly R25,000 a month and a personal income of R15,000.
Additionally, 69% of South Africans cannot pay all their bills on time, with 33% who said they were homeowners having been late with their home loan repayment in the past 12 months. The number of secured credit has dropped to 700,000 with home loans and 604,000 with Vehicle Asset Finance . “Many people are facing extraordinary financial headwinds and struggling to service their debt on home loans, vehicle loans, credit cards and overdrafts,” he said.
This means this person will need to earn an additional R8,915 per month at a gross level to have the extra R5,438 after tax to sustain their standard of living.The FNB/BER Consumer Confidence Index showed that middle-income households saw their confidence levels improve from -22 in Q2 to -15 in Q3, whilst confidence levels for low-income households remained unchanged at -16.