Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Americans in debt

U.S. household debt and credit report, published Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, showed that the overall debt shouldered by Americans edged up to a record $13.5 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2018. It has risen consistently since 2013, when debt bottomed out after the last recession. 

hTe closing of credit cards and other accounts, jumped to its highest level since 2010, while flows into serious delinquency for credit cards rose 5 percent, up from 4.8 percent in the third quarter. Serious-delinquency flows, a warning bell for economists because they can prelude defaults, spiked in the third quarter for student debt and remained there in the fourth quarter, with 9.1 percent of the $1.5-trillion total debt seriously delinquent. 

“Growing delinquencies among subprime borrowers are responsible for this deteriorating performance, and younger borrowers are struggling most acutely to afford their auto loans,” said Joelle Scally, administrator of the New York Fed’s center for microeconomic data.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-debt/red-flags-emerge-as-americans-debt-load-hits-another-record-idUSKCN1Q11YV

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