The credit card blues....

Got into a heated discussion with a friend of mine today. She felt that the reason there's so much consumer debt nowadays is that, due to rampant materialism, people habitually live beyond their means. I felt that the reason there's so much consumer debt nowadays is that most people don't make enough to live, so they use credit cards to make up the difference.

I was arguing from the perspective of someone socialised as a female in the 1950's, who even though I've been living for the past 12 years as a man am still making waaaayyy below what most men my age and with my level of education earn--heck, I'm making significantly less than my ex-girlfriend who's 28 years old and has a bachelor's degree (to my 50+ years old and master's degree).

And I was arguing from the perspective of someone from the working class, first person in my immediate family to not just finish college but earn a master's degree, albeit when I turned 41, and who raised my daughter mostly as a single parent.

My working life began at 16 when my mom brought home piece-work. Then I graduated to part-time library-page while still in high school.

After graduating high school on a college-prep track sixth in my class of more than 350 students, I got a job cleaning motel rooms. I didn't know any better: none of my high school counselors prompted me to apply for university. My mother had commited suicide when I was a junior and I was still reeling. And my dad, having never gone to college, didn't really understand the system. Several years later, when I landed my first office job, I thought I'd positively arrived.

Frustratingly, though I'm much better educated both formally and in the ways of the world, I've barely progressed salary-wise since then.

So, what do you think? Is frivolous, out-of-control middle-class spending mainly to blame for raging consumer debt? Or working people making too low of a wage to reasonably get by?