Investing.com -- American households are putting it on plastic these days, with credit card balances reaching $1.03 trillion in the second quarter, according to the latest report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The regional Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data said there was a slight uptick in overall household debt in the second quarter, climbing 0.1% from the first quarter of 2023 to a total of $17.06 trillion.
Credit card balances rose by $45 billion in the second quarter, or 4.6% higher than the first quarter. “Credit card balances saw brisk growth in the second quarter,” said Joelle Scally, regional economic principal at the New York Fed’s Household and Public Policy Research Division. “And while delinquency rates have edged up, they appear to have normalized to pre-pandemic levels.”
Credit card accounts expanded by 5.48 million to 578.35M, the report said. Aggregate limits on credit card accounts rose $9B and now total $4.6 trillion.
Falling mortgage origination and slowing home prices meant that mortgage balances didn’t budge much from the first quarter, the Fed said, standing at $12.01 trillion by the end of June.
Auto loan balances rose by $20B.