You are asked about assets, income etc. but those things have very little effect on whether you get a credit card or not.
Both scenarios are fundamentally impossible with a debit card, so I really don't see how there's any relevance here. It's not the purchasing end that they're interested in, it's the paying-it-back part.
Thats not really important here.
You are not suddenly going to become financially irresponsible just because you get credit and yes you can determine someones financial responsibility by looking at their debit card usage that is why you can actually convince someone if you get rejected to look at your case again to show them additional information. This is why you can get a credit card in citibank if you have 25K in your savings account for 3 months straight and so on.
A ton of people suddenly become financially irresponsible just because they get a credit card. It's a massive problem, and that's why companies want to see some history. Being responsible with a debit card where there are hard limits on how irresponsible you can be doesn't mean a whole lot for how you'll be with a credit card.
The problem with people using the credit card lies as much in the incentive structure of getting points, building credit etc.
And it's obviously speaking against your claim that so many american have issues with their credit cards given that the very test your claim is necessary is failing on so many.
So no I understand the balance pretty well.
Uhhhhhh... You haven't been in the United States for very long, have you?
But you can't see the forest for the trees.
You can't go into debt using a debit card because you are spending your own money you already have.
These are much better indicators of your ability to handle money than spending money and paying it back to build credit history.
Again it works in other countries and so of course it can too in the US.
Credit score is one of many pieces of information used in lending.
Alternative credit scores are starting to come on the market for people who pay bills on time but may not otherwise have a traditional credit history but they are pretty experimental still. There's different algorithms too. The current one used most often is FICO 8 but there's a LOT more.
Each lender has their target borrower too. Some lenders are what is called subprime lenders meaning they lend to people with low or limited credit histories.
Debit card use makes no sense and is irrelevant.