
DECEMBER 10, 2015 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY MELANIE ANZIDEI
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Consumers are expected to end the year with credit card debt that is close to levels experts consider unsustainable.
A study released Wednesday by the credit card comparison company CardHub found that consumers racked up $21.3 billion in new credit card debt in the third quarter, from July through September. That’s 34 percent more than the same period last year, and the most for the third quarter since 2009, the year the recession ended.
CardHub projects that credit card debt by Dec. 31 will surpass last year’s by $68.5 billion. At that pace, the average household will be ringing in the new year owing more than $8,000, the highest since the last recession.
“We consider an average [household] debt of $8,400 as being unsustainable — proved in 2008 when the crushing debt plunged us into the Great Recession,” Jill Gonzalez, a CardHub analyst, said in an email Tuesday afternoon.
She added that these rising levels of credit card debt should serve as a “wake-up call” to consumers, who should “rein in spending” in an effort to avoid reaching that tipping point.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/credit-card-debt-is-dangerously-high-experts-say-1.1471448
CardHub https://www.cardhub.com/edu/credit-card-debt-study/