In an economy that has produced the highest inflation rate since the early 1980s, Americans are struggling to keep up with day-to-day expenses.
More consumers are now relying on credit cards to get by, which has helped propel total credit card debt to $930 billion in the third quarter, just shy of the all-time record, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Credit card balances climbed more than 15% from a year earlier, the largest annual jump in more than 20 years.
“With prices more than 8% higher than they were a year ago, it is perhaps unsurprising that balances are increasing,” the Fed researchers wrote in a blog post. “The real test, of course, will be to follow whether these borrowers will be able to continue to make the payments on their credit cards.”
