Re:Apple Could Be Working with Goldman Sachs on a Credit Card
by dalyons on Thursday February 21, 2019 @04:39PM
(#19220790)
fair point on the debit lowering the effective "tax".
I'll point to my edit and restate that its better for you, because you're well-off enough to get a 2%-back card. I'm guessing that the average across all cards/americans is much lower than 2%.
(i'm an immigrant to the US, and for the first few years all you can get is the crappy starter cards available to people with poor/no credit, that have no benefits. These days, im in your boat - i qualify for the fancier cards so im essentially making money of the back of everyone that doesnt. So i would be worse off too, but i think thats fine)
It's definitely kind of silly and it's definitely regressive, but your numbers are off. In reality, I get ~2% back in rewards in exchange for a ~0.25% tax on everything. The math for this works out because most transactions aren't made with credit cards. https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/public-policy-discuss...
I'd still support regulation that addresses this - either by directly capping interchange fees or using a different approach - but I personally won't be better off because of it.