alt Hacker NewsNo, an average person uses it to improve liquidity atop overall solid fundamentals. Literally hundreds of million people worldwide do it with no adverse effects and improved quality of life. Irresponsible people are relatively a minority (although they tend to make the news). And aversion to financing is in itself a poverty marker more often than not.
Of those who carry credit cards in the US, 60% of them carry a balance [0].
There are also all those reports that have come out about how nearly 40% of Americans don't have $400 for an emergency [1], with the median being just $600.
If the rule of thumb for an emergency fund is 3-6 months of expenses, and we can agree that paying interest on a credit card is a bad finical decision, then I'm not sure how the "average" person has solid fundamentals, where credit cards are being used as a strategic tool.
People also tend to spend more when using credit cards [2], which negates most benefits someone may get from using credit card for the points. So even those with solid fundamentals, who are using it as a tool, are probably still losing, just in a less obvious way.
[0] https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2025/03/why-ar...
[1] https://www.empower.com/press-center/37-americans-cant-affor...
[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1008196717017