Intuit CEO Highlights Gen Z’s Strategy to Combat Recession: Rising Credit Card Debt by 36-37% Despite Steady Employment
The American economy in 2025 presents a paradox: while many headline indicators point to resilience, younger households are feeling disproportionate pressure. Examining data and firsthand accounts, the Intuit CEO’s commentary helps frame a clear narrative: Gen Z is using credit cards as a stopgap tool to smooth living costs even as jobs remain available. This report-style opening puts that tension front and center. It emphasizes the interplay between employment, purchasing power, and credit behavior, and it situates Gen Z within a broader K-shaped recovery where asset owners recover but many young consumers struggle to keep pace. Using a hypothetical young professional—Ava, 24, based in Brooklyn—this piece illustrates practical choices and policy consequences, and it connects deterministic figures like a 36–37% rise in card balances to everyday financial management decisions.
Intuit CEO Perspective on Gen Z Credit Card Debt Strategy During Recession
Sasan Goodarzi, the CEO of Intuit, has access to a broad dataset across personal finance platforms that reveals stress points for younger cohorts. He describes a scenario where Gen Z carries sharply higher credit card balances—around a 36–37% increase—while employment remains “steady.” That combination generates a distinct strategy: use credit to carry consumption when wages cannot keep pace with inflation and essential price rises.
To make this concrete, consider Ava. She graduated in 2022 and took a marketing job in New York. Her nominal wages track median pay for her cohort, which when adjusted for inflation looks slightly better than prior generations at the same age, yet real purchasing power is thinner. Grocery bills, rent increases, and higher energy costs force her to rely on cards for short-term liquidity. Ava’s story mirrors thousands across cities where median Gen Z income remains under $50,000 in many metropolitan areas.
How Intuit’s Data Informs the Strategy
Intuit’s product family—TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Credit Karma—captures multiple angles: tax returns, small business cash flow, and consumer credit performance. By aggregating this information, the CEO can identify where liabilities are rising, which demographics are most affected, and how employment status correlates with borrowing patterns. The insight that employment is still strong for many younger workers explains one reason why household defaults haven’t spiked despite rising balances: steady income partially offsets rising obligations.
Yet steady employment doesn’t mean secure finances. Many young workers are on hourly, contract, or gig-based arrangements. The margin for error is small. A single medical bill, a broken furnace, or an emergency travel expense can push balances higher. That’s why the Intuit-led view treats this rising credit utilization as a deliberate strategy—a temporary patch rather than a long-term plan.
This section underscores a point: policy and financial advice must differentiate between unemployment-driven debt and consumption-smoothing debt that arises even when jobs persist. The Intuit CEO’s framing reframes rising card balances as an adaptive behavior to an affordability crisis, rather than a pure credit irresponsibility story.
Key insight: Rising card balances among Gen Z reflect an affordability-driven strategy enabled by continued but fragile employment, as revealed by Intuit’s cross-platform data.
Economic Impact And The K-Shaped Recovery: Why Gen Z Is Disproportionately Exposed
The macro landscape in 2025 accentuates inequalities. A pronounced K-shaped dynamic has taken hold: households with financial and property assets have largely weathered inflation and interest rate pressures, while consumption-driven households face sticker shock on essentials. This divergence drives what the Intuit CEO and other analysts call an affordability crisis. Gen Z is concentrated in the lower half of the K distribution, often lacking significant asset cushions.
Empirical patterns illustrate this. SmartAsset and other surveys show that in many cities Gen Z median incomes fall below broader household medians, and combined wealth of Millennials and Gen Z remains a small share of national wealth. These structural imbalances explain why a cohort with steady employment still resorts to credit cards at record levels: wage growth is not matching the rise in necessary expenses.
Inflation, Wages, and Purchasing Power
Inflation has moderated since its pandemic-era highs, but headline metrics still outpace the Federal Reserve’s target at times. For instance, a post-pandemic spike gave way to slower disinflation, with a notable uptick that left core prices well above the 2% goal at certain points. The outcome: even nominal pay increases can translate into negative real wage growth when measured against persistent price pressure. Gen Z’s median pay adjusted for inflation may look comparable to previous cohorts, but the persistence of essential price increases erodes actual purchasing capacity.
Another consequence of this setup is the upward trend in consumer credit utilization. Rising card balances create interest expenses that further reduce disposable income, reinforcing the K-shape—higher-income households can invest and build assets, while lower-income households experience slower consumption and reduced mobility.
Key insight: The K-shaped recovery has institutional and personal consequences: Gen Z’s rising credit reliance is a symptom of unequal inflation impacts and limited asset buffers.
Practical Financial Management: Tools, Strategies, And Policy Relevance For Gen Z
When credit card debt is rising but employment remains steady, the right mix of tools and behavior can mitigate long-term damage. Practical financial management is not an abstract discipline; it’s a set of applied decisions that Ava and her peers can implement. That includes emergency savings, targeted repayment, understanding credit mechanics, and, where appropriate, consolidation or counseling.
Start with an emergency fund: a buffer of three to six months’ expenses reduces reliance on high-interest cards when shocks occur. For those without such a cushion, the importance of emergency funds is a practical primer. Where balances already exist, structured repayment strategies work best. Resources on debt management strategies outline snowball and avalanche methods and when to choose each.
Credit Lines, Consolidation, And Building Score
Consolidation can be helpful when rates and terms improve the overall cost of debt. Tools like a credit consolidation guide explain the mechanics and the tradeoffs. However, consolidation must be paired with behavioral change; otherwise, new credit lines simply reset the cycle. For Gen Zers building credit, resources such as how to build credit and maintain a good credit score are essential reading.
Employment screening and credit visibility can also shape decisions. Many employers conduct checks that make understanding your financial profile pragmatic; see guidance on employment credit checks. Knowing how lenders and employers see your financial history influences strategy and risk management.
- Establish a small recurring savings habit to build immediate liquidity.
- Prioritize high-rate balances to avoid compounding interest.
- Use budgeting tools that link to accounts to detect creeping expenses.
- Consider low-cost credit consolidation only after careful comparison.
- Monitor credit reports regularly and dispute errors promptly.
Key insight: For Gen Z, combining emergency savings with disciplined repayment and selective consolidation offers the most durable route to reduce the harm of rising debt.
Credit Scores, Employment Interactions, And The Behavioral Economics Of Rising Debt
Understanding the mechanics behind credit scores clarifies why rising balances matter beyond monthly payments. Lower credit scores reduce access to inexpensive credit, increase insurance premiums in some states, and can constrain housing options. Intuit’s CEO emphasized that credit scores have fallen to historic lows for younger cohorts, a trend that compounds the impact of higher balances.
Behavioral economics explains several observed behaviors. Present bias pushes individuals to prefer immediate consumption; when a paycheck is present, it is tempting to bridge affordability gaps with cards rather than make long-term tradeoffs. Employers’ expectations and hiring practices make visible the interplay between financial records and labor markets. This is where the basics of credit scores are relevant: they guide young people on how behavior maps to future opportunity.
Table: Comparative Credit And Income Indicators
| Indicator | Gen Z (approx.) | Millennials (approx.) | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Credit Card Balance Increase (since 2022) | 36–37% | ~50% for older Millennials | Gen Z shows rapid rise despite steady employment |
| Median Income (many cities) | $50,000–$70,000 | Gen Z concentrated in lower half of distribution | |
| Share of National Wealth | 10.7% combined for Millennials and Gen Z | Reflects historical asset accumulation lag | |
These indicators show the interaction between credit health and labor market outcomes. For Ava, a lower score can translate into higher rent or less favorable loan offers—costs that perpetuate the cycle. The behavioral response required is twofold: correct immediate overspending patterns and rebuild credit signals through consistent, on-time payments and lower utilization rates.
Key insight: Credit scores are the currency of future financial access; for Gen Z, restoring scores is the lever that limits the long-term economic impact of rising debt.
Policy, Personal Case Studies, And Actionable Next Steps For Consumers And Employers
Policy options and employer practices can blunt the worst effects of the affordability crisis. On the policy side, initiatives that expand access to low-interest credit, increase emergency savings incentives, or stabilize rent and utility costs would directly reduce the need to accumulate high-cost card debt. On the employer side, pay-frequency changes, emergency payroll advances, and financial wellness benefits—offered by many firms—have measurable impact.
Consider two short case studies. First, Ava joins a startup that introduces a paycheck-in-advance benefit for small emergencies. She uses it once instead of her card and avoids two months of interest accrual. Second, Jamal, a gig worker, consolidates several high-rate cards using a lower-rate personal loan after researching credit consolidation companies and credit consolidation services. His monthly payment drops, and he pays down principal faster.
Practical next steps for an individual in Ava’s position include:
- Build a starter emergency fund using automated transfers.
- Prioritize repayment of highest-rate cards using the avalanche method.
- Explore consolidation only after comparing total cost and terms.
- Monitor credit reports quarterly and correct errors promptly.
- Engage employer benefits for advances or short-term support when available.
These actions are grounded in the reality that while recession risk persists, the current playbook must acknowledge both the rising debt phenomenon and the protective role of employment. Employers and policymakers that reduce volatility for younger workers can change the trajectory for Gen Z’s financial health.
Key insight: Coordinated policy and workplace solutions, combined with household-level financial management, offer the clearest path to reduce Gen Z’s reliance on high-cost credit and improve long-term resilience.