On April 11, 2025, people buy in a Walmart in Rosemead, California.
Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty pictures
A growing number of Americans now uses purchase, pay later loans to buy food, and more people pay these bills late, according to new credit tree data that were published on Friday.
The figures are the latest indicator that some consumers crack under the pressure of an unsafe economy and have difficulty ensuring essentials such as food, since they deal with persistent inflation, high interest rates and concerns about tariffs.
In a survey, which was carried out from 2nd to 3 to 2,000 US consumers between the ages of 18 and 79, around half reported that he had now used the purchase and paid later services. Of these consumers, 25% of those surveyed stated that they use BNPL loans to buy food, compared to 14% in 2024 and 21% in 2023, the company said.
In the meantime, 41% of those surveyed stated that it was delayed for a BNPLP loan last year, compared to 34% in the previous year, as the survey showed.
Matt Schulz, the chief analyst for the chief analyst for the Lending Tree, said that the respondents said that they had paid a BNPL bill too late, most said it was no more than a week or so.
“Many people are fighting and looking for opportunities to extend their budget,” said Schulz. “Inflation is still a problem. The interest is still very high. There are many uncertainties regarding tariffs and other economic problems, and everything will help to look for many people to expand their budget how they can.”
“For a terrible amount of people, this will mean that you are now leaning on to buy, paying later loans, for good or bad,” he said.
He stopped calling the results as a recession indicator, but it is expected to continue to decrease before they get better.
“I think it will get worse at least at short notice,” said Schulz. “I don't know that there is a big reason that these numbers get better at short notice.”
The loans that enable consumers to divide purchases into several smaller payments are a popular alternative to credit cards, since they often do not calculate interest. However, consumers can see high fees if they pay late and they can have problems if they stack several loans. In the Lending Tree survey, 60% of the BNPL users stated that they had several loans at the same time, from almost one four or more that they kept three or more at once.
“It is simply very important that people are careful when they use these things, because although they can be a really good interesting instrument to make it from one salary check to the next, there is also a great risk to manage it wrong,” said Schulz. “So people should kick easily.”
The results of Lending Tree arise after the Billboard that about 60% of visitors to the general entrance officers financed their concert tickets with Now -purchase, paid later loans and triggered a debate about the state of the economy and how consumers use debts to maintain their lifestyle. An announcement that was recently announced by Doordash that BNPL Financing should be accepted by Klarna for grocery deliveries led to widespread ridicule and jokes that the Americans had to struggle so much that they were now forced to finance cheeseburger and burritos.
In recent years, consumers have kept up relatively well in view of the continuing inflation and high interest rates, since the labor market was strong and wage growth had kept pace with inflation – at least for some employees.
At the beginning of this year, however, large companies, including Walmart And Delta Airlines started to warn that the dynamics had started to change and they saw in demand what led to worse than expected sales forecasts.
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