According to the New York Fed, total household debt in the United States increased by 212 billion dollars during the fourth quarter of 2023. It is now sitting at a grand total of 17.5 trillion dollars. I suppose the good news is that we aren’t 34 trillion dollars in debt like the federal government is. But 17.5 trillion dollars is still really bad, and it is far more than U.S. households can handle. Unsurprisingly, delinquency rates have started to spike, and I fully expect this trend to intensify in the months ahead.
Let’s start by taking a look at credit card debt. During the fourth quarter, it hit a brand new all-time record high of 1.13 trillion dollars…
Americans are increasingly turning to their credit cards to cover everyday expenses, with debt hitting a new record high at the end of December, according to a New York Federal Reserve report published February 6.
In the three-month period from October to December, total credit card debt surged to $1.13 trillion, an increase of $50 billion, or 4.6% from the previous quarter, according to the report. It marks the highest level on record in Fed data dating back to 2003 and the ninth consecutive annual increase.
The average rate of interest on credit card balances is now way above 20 percent, and so it has be ...
