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Americans rack up $19 billion in credit card debt in one month
(www.newsweek.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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Does this include all credit card usage or just credit card usage that has accrued interest?
I believe it is based on the utilization of credit (so the total sum, compared period to period)
It's gone up. Considerably. Contrary to what that picture shows a lot of households are absorbing the combination of shrinking portions of food / rising prices with cards.
Is that just straight usage or outstanding balance?
My usage of credit cards has changed over the years.
It used to be I used them very sparing for infrequent large purchases. Then paid them off in installments.
Now I use a credit card for most regular purchases because of the cash back and security if the card number gets compromised. I also pay it off in full every month.
So my usage has increased by 10x but my outstanding balance is 0.
Same that’s why I was curious. I use credit cards for all purchases for added security and other perks but have never carried a balance. While i technically have debt between paying it off every month, it has never accrued interest.
I believe it's existing balance at the end of the period so technically while you pay it off that balance would be reported (though it would change month to month based on whatever that new balance is.)
These are market wide reported numbers so it's hard to say exactly what metric they are using under the hood.. so this is my best guess. In terms of the reported numbers they have been rising though - by whatever metric is being used.
So it could be either rising usage or increasing debt load or likely a combination of both. Just how much from each, we don't know.
The number that matters next will be number of bankruptcies.