U.S. credit-card debt jumps nearly 20% in the first quarter, TransUnion says
Published: May 11, 2023 at 1:47 p.m. ET
By Emma Ockerman
Balances for unsecured personal loans were also up over 26% in the first quarter compared to a year ago, TransUnion reported Thursday
U.S. credit-card debt rose by nearly 20% in the first quarter when compared to a year earlier, hitting $917 billion as consumers tried to cope with higher prices, first-quarter data from TransUnion released Thursday shows.
But putting my groceries (in fact, every penny of spending I can put onto a card to get the points) isn’t what’s contributing to the increase in overall credit card debt – IF I make sure I pay off the balance each month. I’ll bet you do too.
Those of us who do that are not the ones S’Foot was talking about though. I’m sure you knew that.
Some time back (before the turn of the century) I was reading an analysis of the house of cards being built on debt. At the time, the federal debt was about 10 trillion. Part of the analysis pointed out that there were four overall buckets of similarly sized total debt at the time. The second bucket was consumer debt (mortgages, car loans, student loans, credit card, etc.) The third was municipal debt (school districts, city, county, state debt overall nationwide.) The 4th was corporate debt. It went into the way debt from each sector holds up debt from the others in a mutual pattern of support. The concern in the essay was that a large enough failure in one sector could trigger failure in all of them.
The federal debt is now triple what it was way back then. And I have no idea if the others have also grown proportionally. I really hope the system doesn’t collapse, but it’s my opinion that the bigger it all grows, the harder the fall will be if it does collapse.
This, the sheer number of posts of people doing this on Reddit is boggling. They are broke and using their CC as cash for basic goods. When asked whatcha going to do about all that interest the answers is either I have no other choice or don’t know, have to eat.
This may be the case, but people also spend money on convenience. I’m a toll collector, and 10-15% of the cash paying public, (those without EZ-Pass) ask for the pay online receipt. That’s at a whopping 40% mark up. And they continue to do it.
I hear it so often, and I weep for my species being too ignorant to perform basic math the way my elementary-aged school children can (and are expected to).
Chart below shows the total amount of credit card debt and consumer loans from commercial banks. It’s a safe bet we didn’t get stupider in some years and smarter and others (the second part certainly isn’t true), so most likely when credit card debt etc. rises and falls, something economic is going on.
Isn’t that sort of what flash and smash mobs are effectively doing for themselves? Even their excuse makers are saying they have no other choice. Right?
That’s until all the businesses move out and then when that happens they will have no choice but to turn on all the law abiding residents in those communities! Then watch those towns become third-world ■■■■■■■■■■
