24 May 2006
The Citizens Advice Bureaux has announced that it is now receiving twice the number of calls from people with debt problems than it did eight years ago.
More and more people are seeking help after sinking into debt that will take a lifetime to pay off, according to the bureaux's figures.
It said that people contacting them with debt problems faced an average credit bill of £13,153, which was an increase of over a third on the figure produced three years ago.
It was also around 17.5 times their total monthly income. The charity calculated that the backlog of debts would take the average debtor 77 years to clear at a realistic rate.
"Low income, combined with badly informed and poorly understood financial decisions are at the root of many of our clients' debt problems," said Citizens Advice chief executive David Harker.
"The reality is that they are condemned to a lifetime of poverty overshadowed by an inescapable burden of unpayable debt.
"They need to be given some hope that they can turn things around, with a solution that offers them a fresh start, lifts them out of the poverty trap, and gives them a chance to build better financial skills for the future," he added.
Its figures were based on a survey of 567 debt clients from the charity's 61 bureaux across England and Wales.
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