Buy Now, Pay Later Reveals a Deeper Affordability Crisis
David R. Jones, La Nueva Mayoria / The New Majority
For millions of New Yorkers today, the latest retail buzzword isn’t “free shipping” or “flash sale”. It is Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL). At first glance, BNPL may seem like a convenient way to stretch out payments for a pair of sneakers or a new phone. But this new trend is revealing something far more troubling about the financial lives of working families, especially Black and Hispanic households, and underscores the urgent need to address the rising affordability crisis in housing, healthcare, and education.
A new report from the Community Service Society (CSS) makes this clear. Drawing on a statewide survey of New Yorkers, and reflecting trends seen nationwide, the report finds that more than a third of moderate-income residents are relying, at higher rates than both lower- and higher- income groups, on short-term debt like BNPL just to cover basic expenses. This suggests a widening policy gap: moderate-income households are excluded from most safety-net programs yet are still unable to meet basic expenses without taking on debt.
National data tell a similar story: lower income households, people without emergency savings, and those with constrained access to traditional credit are far more likely to turn to BNPL.
And the racial dimensions cannot be ignored. Research shows that Black and Hispanic consumers, particularly Black and Hispanic women, are more likely to use BNPL than their white counterparts.
What makes BNPL uniquely troubling is not that people use it, but that people increasingly use it for groceries and other basic needs. When financing your weekly food bill becomes routine, we should stop talking about consumer choice and start talking about systemic failure.
The CSS report’s findings about short-term debt mirror broader national patterns of consumer stress. Even Federal Reserve research shows that many people who use BNPL do so because they simply can’t afford the purchase any other way.
This trend is tied to decades of stagnating wages, rising costs, and shrinking safety nets. This is not about irresponsible spending. It is about survival in a city and state where the cost of living has far outpaced wages, particularly for low-income households and communities of color.
In neighborhoods across the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and beyond, families already stretched thin by rent increases, medical bills, and childcare costs are using BNPL to bridge gaps in cash flow. For many, it feels like the only option left when paychecks don’t stretch far enough.
When so much of a household’s income is consumed by these fixed costs, even small, unexpected expenses like a winter coat or prescription can push families into borrowing.
New York is leading the way in regulating Buy Now, Pay Later with its 2025 BNPL Act, which creates the nation’s first state licensing and oversight system for BNPL providers, giving the Department of Financial Services authority to regulate these products and curb hidden costs and over-borrowing by requiring clearer disclosures, consumer protections, and limits on fees and practices.
But if we want fewer New Yorkers relying on Buy Now, Pay Later to get by, we must tackle the root causes of financial precarity. Our elected officials in Albany and New York City must redouble their efforts to address people’s financial stress by investing in truly affordable housing and strengthening tenant protections, reducing out-of-pocket healthcare, and making education affordable, from early childhood programs to college and workforce training.
Real economic security means that no one has to buy now and pay later just to live today. Let’s build an economy where working New Yorkers can thrive without debt looming over every purchase.