Credit: New York Fed / Via newyorkfed.org
American households are back at peak debt, with new data showing the highest level of household debt since 2008.
Kind of.
Americans now sit on a $12.73 trillion pile of household debt, meaning mortgages, loans, credit cards, home equity lines of credit, car loans, and student debt. That figure previously peaked at $12.68 trillion in the early days of the Great Recession.
Those numbers aren’t adjusted for inflation, and $12.68 trillion 2008 dollars would be equal to more than $14.5 trillion today. And while debt number is at it’s highest ever, the economy has grown significantly in the last nine years, meaning that as a percentage of the total economy, it’s still well below its 2008 high.
“Almost nine years later, household debt has finally exceeded its 2008 peak but the debt and its borrowers look quite different today,” said Donghoon Lee, a Research Officer at the New York Fed. “This record debt level is neither a reason to celebrate nor a cause for alarm.”
The […]
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