Credit Card Debt Statistics

We can tell you first hand that credit card debt statistics are pretty hard to find. That's because these statistics are not routinely gathered on a national basis, nor are they a part of a standard database that is open to the general public. But we were able to find some information that is specific to credit card debt and a couple of statistics on mortgage debt too.

Credit Cards and Debt Statistics

We're first going to quickly cover some work done by the Credit Research Center back in March 2002 including information on college student credit cards. From there we'll move on to some more recent statistics published by the Census and the Federal Reserve. We'll finish up with some overall observations with respect to the debt burden carried by the average American family.

Credit Statistics from Georgetown University

Additional Resources

Georgetown University runs a Credit Research Center that has published arguably some of the best credit card research available today. In their March 2002 work concerning credit card debt, they've published some pretty eye opening statistics.

This work was done in collaboration with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. This organization specializes in finding of quality credit counselors for those in need throughout the United States. The Credit Research Center also had access to information that was supplied by TransUnion, one of the largest credit reporting agencies in the world.

We understand the 2002 may seem like pretty old material, but these research efforts are multi-year undertakings that involve following the habits of thousands of individuals that were part of the research.

Credit Card Debt and Counseling Statistics

Rather than write a long narrative around the information found in the Georgetown study, we are going to "offer information bites" to our readers. In many ways the information speaks for itself, so let's start our list of credit card debt and related statistics:

Roughly 2.0 to 2.5 million Americans seek the help of a credit counselor each year, mostly to avoid bankruptcy.
From 1990 to 2000, the number of Americans seeking the help of a credit counselor doubled.
In two thirds of the counseling cases, the individual is referred to a household budget counselor, financial advisor or a social worker.
Many individuals experiencing financial difficulties have experienced a job loss, an interruption to their income due to illness, or a divorce / separation.
Nearly 75% of those seeking help from a credit counselor held a credit card.
The average person seeking a credit counselor carries a balance on two credit cards.
The average client seeking the help of a counselor had $43,000 in debt, of which $20,000 was consumer debt and $8,500 was revolving debt.

Credit Cards and College Students

In that same year, Georgetown published information on the use of credit cards by college students. Statistics from that study show:

College students carried an average of $552 in credit card debt, while young adults in the same age brackets carried an average balance of $1,465 on their credit cards.
The average amount of credit extended to students was $1,395, which was considerably less than the $3,581 in credit obtained by young adults (non-students) of the same age. The average adult was able to obtain nearly $7,500 in credit.
College students are more likely to pay off their credit card balance than any other demographic group studied.
And while students are much more likely to pay off their balances, they tend to pay late and exceed their credit limits more frequently than other groups and therefore incur more fees than other groups.

Federal Reserve Debt Statistics

Another good source of credit card and other debt statistics is the Federal Reserve. Current statistics on debt gathered by this US government agency include:

The size of the total consumer debt grew nearly five times in size from 1980 ($355 billion) to 2001 ($1.7 trillion). Consumer debt in 2008 now stands at $2.6 trillion.
The average household in 2008 carried nearly $8,700 in credit card debt.
As of the twelve months ending June 2006, there were 1.5 million consumer bankruptcy filings, including 1.1 million Chapter 7 filings, 0.1 million filings for Chapter 11 and 0.3 million Chapter 13 bankruptcies.

Credit Card Projections

According to latest information gathered by the US Census bureau, there were 164 million credit card holders in the United States in 2005 and that number is projected to grow to 176 million Americans by 2010. These same Americans own approximately 1.4 billion cards - an average of nearly nine credit cards issued per credit card holder.

In addition, Americans charged approximately $2,052 billion dollars to their credit cards in 2005 - that's just over $12,500 in charges each year per cardholder. This information includes all credit card types including bank cards, phone cars, as well as credit cards issued by oil companies and retail store.

Finally, this data tells us that Americans carried approximately 832 billion dollars in credit card debt and that number is expected to grow to a projected 1,091 billion dollars by the year 2010. This works out to approximately $5,000 in credit card debt per cardholder (not household as mentioned in the Federal Reserve statistics mentioned earlier.) And that number is expected to increase to nearly $6,200 by 2010.

Census Bureau Mortgage Statistics

A final source of statistics that are related to credit is the 2000 Census. There are certain questions in the Census that everyone answers; this is called the 100% sample data. This is also the form that most of us filled out in 2000. However, as part of the Census a number of other variables are gathered through statistical sampling. The information below is the debt information gathered via the Census through what is known as the long form:

Roughly 70% of homes that are occupied by their owners have a mortgage.
Of those homeowners with a mortgage, 22.6% of them have either a second mortgage or a home equity loan.
Only 0.4% of homeowners have both a second mortgage and a home equity loan.

Quite frankly, we find that last statistic both chilling and a relief. We are relieved because the percentage is very low, but we wonder how those households are able to make a mortgage, second mortgage and home equity loan payment each month.

Debt Service and Financial Obligations

The Federal Reserve also reports what is called the household debt service ratio or DSR. This measure tells us the ratio of all debt payments to disposable income. Unlike payments to credit cards, this statistic measures the debt load associated with basic living expenses such as owning a car and home. As of June 2008, consumers spend roughly 14% of their disposable, after tax income, to pay their mortgages obligations, personal loans and car loans.

The financial obligations ratio measures the amount of consumer debt in the DSR but adds to this measure such things as car lease payments, rental properties, property taxes and homeowner's insurance. As of June 2008, this financial obligations ratio stood at 17.82% for homeowners and 25.98% for renters. What this data tells us is that the typical homeowner spends around 18% of their disposable income just to own their homes and cars, while renters spend over 25% of their income on these same types of debts.

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