The number of Americans rolling credit card debt from month to month is now higher than the number of people paying their bills in full for the first time ever.
Americans are buried under more than $1 trillion in credit card debt. Credit card balances increased by $45 billion between April and June alone. Meanwhile, credit card interest rates have climbed to 20.6%. With both balances and interest expenses rising, more and more people are struggling to pay the bills.
According to a JD Power survey, 51% of US credit cardholders now carry revolving debt. To put that into perspective, from 2018 to 2022, the percentage of those rolling over balances ranged from 40% to 50%.
The average balance on a credit card was $2,573 in June. That represents a 6.5% increase from a year ago.
What we have not seen in the past is there are more revolvers than transactors,” JD Power managing director of payments intelligence John Cabell told Yahoo Finance. “It’s inflation, it’s savings dwindling, we’re also seeing rising interest rates, which makes it harder to pay off that balance because it’s getting bigger.”
The rising number of delinquent accounts also indicates people are having a hard time keeping up with credit card payments. The number of accounts past due by one cycle has increased 42.6% over the last two years. Delinquencies have crept up to the highest level since 2017.