Credit card debt statistics speak to the financial health of American households. They can also foreshadow over-borrowing bubbles, changes to lending standards, and other trends with the potential to impact our wallets. And the latest news is not good.
Americans now owe more than $1 trillion in credit card debt for the first time ever, after adding a post-Great Recession record $92.2 billion to our tab in 2017. Only four times in the past 30 years have we spent so much in a year. And in each of those prior cases, the charge-off rate – currently hovering near historical lows – rose the following year. There wasn’t nearly as much kindling on the fire, either.
So it’s not a question of whether consumers are weakening financially, but rather how long this trend toward pre-recession habits will last and just how bad it will get.
https://wallethub.com/edu/credit-card-debt-study/24400/