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Credit Card Debt Take II

Some issues seem to only get worse. Some updated statistics about credit cards and debt in American since the last time I posted about this:


  • Americans spent one in seven of their take-home dollars on debt payments last year, up from one in nine in 1980.

  • In 2006, the industry mailed out nearly 8 billion credit card offers, up from 3.5 billion in 2000.

  • Credit card debt, less than $8 billion in 1968 (in current dollars), now exceeds $880 billion, more than tripling since 1988, adjusting for inflation, according to the Federal Reserve Bank.

  • In part because of the debt burden, the consumer savings rate fell below zero percent in 2005 and has stayed there.

Tags: debt