Journal Article

Charging up a mountain of debt: accounting for the growth of credit card debt

Abstract: Total U.S. credit card debt has almost doubled since 1988. Little is apparent from the aggregate data, however, about the composition of credit card debt growth. In this article, Peter S. Yoo separates household data into two categories: changes in the number of households with credit cards, and changes in average credit card debt for increased total credit card debt. Moreover, he finds that the principal contributors to the increase are households with above-average incomes rather than low-income households.

Keywords: Debt; Credit cards;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Part of Series: Review

Publication Date: 1997

Issue: Mar

Pages: 3-13