Americans Are Getting Better With Credit Card Debt
In February of this year American government and census data determined that that the average adult in America has $3,752 in revolving credit card debt. This is actually a decline from July of 2009, when the average credit card debt per adult was estimated at $4,013. The total credit card debt of the average entire household in the United States is $7,394 down from $7,861. Obviously the United States consumers have really wised up to their credit debt spending ways.
There was another intriguing data published by the Federal reserve board as well. In the recent surveys, it states that 75% of Americans have one or more credit cards. This is obviously surprising since it implies that 25% of homeowners do not have any credit cards of any kind at all.
This information is certainly very encouraging for my overall perception of the spending habit of Americans. What this data suggests is that there’s a nice percentage of the population that is fully aware of how costly having credit cards could be. I might be curious to see how this 25% that does not have any credit cards at all breaks down demographic wise. I actually hope that the 25% does not just account for people who are under the age of 18 and simply cannot obtain a credit card yet.
I want to consider though that the current credit crunch is in fact teaching useful lessons to those who spent like crazy during the economic boom but are now strapped for cash and are looking for ways on how to eliminate credit card debt. The raging economy prior to the start of the recession was simply too easy to get cash with. I had many friends who were mortgage brokers who could get someone approved for a loan that was a “no doc” loan. What this means in simple English is that one didn’t need any kind of documentation to get the loan. One of my close buddies told me that he was able to approve a guy with his ID from working as a bus driver.
People spend a lot of money everyday, but now there’s no more money to spend and jobs are much tighter then they have ever been. Companies are cutting back which has resulted in less people having jobs or even if they have jobs they most likely are not getting the hours that they once had. In fact, those people who were already loaded with credit card debt prior to recession were seen looking for credit card debt settlement such as Indiana debt relief or Virginia debt relief.
The final outcome that I draw from the apparent lowering in the total amount of revolving debt is this. There was clearly an increase in credit debt at the time the economy took a quick turn south. This was simply because some of us don’t have jobs and have no choice but to rely on a credit cards. The improvement could be based on the economy slowly improving in conjunction with the reduction of consumer spending on their personal credit cards.
