President Donald Trump will deliver a State of the Union address at 9 p.m. EST Tuesday that’s expected to trumpet the soaring stock market and rock bottom unemployment.
With consumer confidence at a 17-year high and employees bragging about their 401(k) balances on social media, Trump has been upbeat on the economy recently. “It’s been incredible what’s happened. It’s like a whole different place,” Trump told a group of ambassadors on Monday about the U.S. economy. “I think we’re taking the world along with us. We’re helping the world.”
See also: The Trump Scoreboard: How the president measures up after 1 year in office
But most workers don’t have 401(k) accounts, so what do Americans see when they look at other measures of their financial health, like checking account balances, mortgage bills and credit card statements?
MarketWatch’s State of the American Wallet dashboard paints a real-time portrait — in data — of how the average American family is faring financially. It updates automatically every month as new data on income, debt and cost of living are recorded.
The numbers provide another picture of American financial health — one with some dark spots. While consumers are spending more freely, they’re often borrowing money to do so. Credit card debt reached record levels in 2017, and student loan and auto loan debt are ballooning.
Meanwhile, households are saving less money than ever as housing prices rise out of reach of many Americans.