 TITLE: Consumer Finances Then and Now: The Great Recession vs. 2020 CONTENT: As part of our ongoing commitment to help consumers manage the impacts of COVID-19, Experian analyzed internal data to show what consumer finances looked like when they entered the Great Recession compared with how they looked at the onset of the current economic downturn. Our analysis is based on a nationally representative sample of Experian's main consumer credit data.\nTo see how consumer finances differed during our current recession and the Great Recession, we looked at debt and credit data from the first four months of each period.\nFor the Great Recession, we analyzed the change in consumer finances from December 2007—the beginning of that recession, according to NBER—to March 2008. To mirror the comparison for the current recession, we compared records from February 2020 to May 2020.\nIn 2008, U.S. consumers carried a higher average debt balance in the month prior to the recession's onset than they did in the month before this year's recession began, according to Experian data. Consumer delinquencies were also higher and average credit scores lower at the start of the Great Recession than they were coming into the current economic downturn.\nIn the first three months of 2020, consumers on average kept debt increases minimal, improved their average credit scores and decreased delinquencies across all debt. In 2008, consumers saw debt spike significantly, improved their scores by only two points and reduced delinquencies at a slower rate than 2020. END