When you, and millions of others like you, buy with credit, you’re fueling our economy by increasing the demand for goods and services. Your spending creates work, jobs, and wealth for the people who provide those goods and services—and it brings money in interest payments to banks and other lenders. The money from your spending encourages innovation and invention as people look for ways to design better products and new, more efficient ways to deliver services to sell to you. And that growth and innovation is what moves all of us, over time, to a better life.

That’s the big-picture benefit of debt and credit. At the individual level—yours— credit has immediate benefits, too. Used carefully, it allows you to buy what you need now and pay for it out of your future earnings. Credit in the form of home mortgages is the lever that allows ordinary people to own their own homes and gradually build a valuable investment for their future. Student loans allow people who couldn’t otherwise afford it to attend school and learn skills that increase their earning power.