March 10, 2025
If you are dealing with debt you are not alone and in fact – a new report found household debt in this country is –yet again on the rise – and Americans are finding it harder and harder to manage it.
Ok – so back to this report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. A few weeks ago they released the fourth quarter report that looks at American household mortgage, auto loans, credit card debt, home equity lines of credit and student loans. So this means they were looking at October, November and December of 2024.
The report says — yes all those categories of debt saw increases which I will break down for you, but the headline of the report is not that those categories of debt went up – the headline is Americans appear to be having a really hard time dealing with that debt.
Here are the numbers. Home mortgage debt increased by $11 billion in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter of 2024. That brings the total household mortgage debt to $12.6 trillion in 2024 which is $353 billion more than the fourth quarter of 2023. Student loan debt increased in the fourth quarter by $9 billion compared to the third quarter of 2023. Bringing the total fourth quarter student loan debt to $1.6 trillion. That’s a $14 billion increase from Q4 of 2023. Auto loan debt increased in the fourth quarter by $11 billion compared to Q3 of 2024 bringing the total amount of auto loan debt to $1.65 trillion which is $48 billion more than Q4 of 2023. And credit card debt increased $45 billion between Q3 and Q4 of 2024 bringing the total credit card debt to $1.2 trillion. That’s an $82 billion increase from 2023.
And if you want to zoom out and look at the big picture, the New York Fed says in all total household debt in the US increased $93 billion in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter of 2024 – bringing the total household debt in this country to more than $18 trillion which is $533 billion more than 2023.
I know that all sounds like monopoly money. Most of us can’t even fathom that amount of money. But the point is – and the numbers prove that debt is increasing in all categories for lots of Americans. And we know that this debt is getting harder to manage – because of another set of numbers.
The numbers of delinquencies and the length of delinquencies on those loans. The delinquency problems are glaring when it comes to auto loans, and credit cards which are the two things that lots of Americans have.
the report found the debt that is the most delinquent by is far is credit card debt. That blue line. The report found 11.4% of credit card payments are considered seriously delinquent which is more than 90 days without payment. That’s the highest it’s been since the fourth quarter of 2011. It’s not the highest number we’ve seen. The highest was 15 years ago in the second quarter of 2010 when the serious delinquency rate on credit cards was 13.7%.
What age group has the most seriously delinquent credit card debt? 18 to 29 year olds – that light blue line. The second largest share was carried by 30 to 39 year olds and the age group with lowest share of seriously delinquent credit card debt was 60 to 69 year olds.
So after credit cards the second highest category of serious delinquencies- this grey line — is for the “other” category which includes things like personal loans and those retail store credit cards. 9.2% of those were considered seriously delinquent.
And then the third highest category of serious delinquencies – the green line – was auto loans. In the fourth quarter of 2024– 4.8% of those were considered seriously delinquent meaning more than 90 days without a car payment. That is very close to the highest level we’ve seen in 20 years. In the fourth quarter of 2010 the number of auto loans that were considered seriously delinquent was 5.3%.
So what does all this data mean? Well – first — I bring it up because if you find yourself in this situation, I want you to understand you are not alone. Second – when we look at this data — we have to take into consideration the economic situation we’ve been facing for the last few years. The fact is inflation is financially difficult and it’s been stubbornly persistent since the pandemic. So folks are dealing with that. That would explain the credit cards. When it comes to the auto loan debt — as I told you in this video a few months ago – that can specifically be traced to a pandemic supply chain issue. Making those cars more expensive when they were purchased. And now as we move into the next few months – these new trump tariffs will again increase the price of cars and trucks and that will absolutely impact car loans and possibly future delinquencies.
New York Fed report here.
