Per multiple news sources last week. The amount of credit card debt held by Americans has reached $1 trillion dollars.
Per CNN: Americans’ credit card debt levels have just notched a new, but undesirable, milestone: For the first time ever, they’ve surpassed $1 trillion, according to data released Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
During the second quarter, credit card balances shot up by $45 billion, or nearly 4.6%, to land at $1.03 trillion, according to the New York Fed’s latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit.
Rising credit card debt and auto loan balances helped to drive overall household debt levels up 1%, to $17.06 trillion for the quarter, the report showed. Overall household debt has spiked by $2.9 trillion since the end of 2019, before the pandemic. The New York Fed’s debt balances are nominal and not adjusted for inflation.
The full impact of this figure won’t be known until student loan debtors return to making monthly payments.
One trillion is equal to 1 million counted a million times. It’s the same thing as a billion dollars one thousand times. A figure I never thought possible practicing Bankruptcy law in Bakersfield, California.
-D. Max Gardner
