re: U.S. credit card debt stands at a record of nearly $1 trillion

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Any idea if this is carrying balance, or does it also factor in those that run up a couple grand on credit cards every month, then pay them off on the statement due date?

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Was curious and found another article:

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Overall, the national average card debt among cardholders with unpaid balances in December 2022 was $7,279. That includes debt from bank cards and retail credit cards.

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What the hell happened in 2010 that caused that jump?

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I looked into this and it’s because of a change in the financial reporting requirements. Actual debt didn’t spike, just the way it was reported.

This also makes it pretty difficult to really compare the long term growth rates before and after the methodology change. You can’t simply subtract (or add) the delta from the spike since you don’t know how that additional data would have impacted the numbers years before or years after they changed the reporting.

That being said, if you look at the period from 2000-2007 (trying to remove the 2008 impacts from the equation since the methodology changes right in the aftermath) credit card debt increased at a 5.518% compound annual growth rate. If you look at the period from 2014-2023, credit card debt increased at a 5.430% CAGR.

So over the long term, revolving debt has been growing at about the same rate. However, if you only look at the period from 2021-2023 it increases to 14.997% CAGR. This is of course after a huge drop in revolving debt from 2020-2021, which appears to have been a result of the stimulus packages.

The question will be whether the growth rate falls back in line with the average now that debt has effectively caught back up to pre-stimulus levels.