Credit Card Debt Statistics

If your Credit Card Debt levels are rising to unmanageable proportions, you are not alone. We at Credit Card Debt Consolidators have compiled the following statistics related to the AVERAGE credit card debt in America.

Credit Card Debt

From one credit card to the next, Americans like to collect credit cards as much as creditors like to supply them. If one card is maxed, a good credit rating allows for another to be added to the family collection. Right now, the average American family has between 10 and 15 credit cards in their name - from major credit cards to store credit cards from individual stores. Currently, over 1.3 billion credit cards are active in the States.

It is not surprising then, to learn that over $1 trillion in purchases are made on credit cards. That's more than double the purchasing statistics on debit cards which are tallied and processed in the same manner as credit cards. Many Americans see credit as a form of income, when it is clearly not. In fact, compared to paying with cash, the average credit card purchase, once the interest rate is tallied in, costs over 100% more. 40% of American families spend more than they earn, and the average family consistently carries almost $6000 of credit card debt per month.

Don't end up a negative credit card debt statistic, contact us here.

Frightening Interest Rates
What's worse, is that many families pay this debt with the minimum monthly payments. Given the average credit card interest rate of 17%, this leads to an additional $15,000 of interest payments over the duration of the payment period, and takes approximately 30 years to pay off. And that's not including additional purchases made on the same credit cards. The situation is even more bleak for families with a critical amount of debt.

Bankruptcy
Following trends from the last 5 years, nearly one out of every one hundred Americans will file for bankruptcy. And this statistic is on the rise, in fact, the amount of declared bankruptcy is the highest it has ever been in the history of the United States. The majority of these people will file for bankruptcy in the first quarter of the year. Due largely to incurred debts during the holidays.

As if mortgage payments aren't enough
Traditionally, the largest, and most important purchase that the average American family made was the purchase of their home. With the mortgage interest rates, this was the one big purchase for which interest rates were generally accepted. Not many people were able to cover the cost of a home all in one shot. Today, most families have to deal with the interest on credit card debt as well, which almost rivals the cost of a home. The result is that homes end up costing a lot more than they should. In fact, right now only approximately 2% of American homes are paid for.

Disposable Income and Retirement
From the Federal Reserve, we learn that in the last 25 years, the amount of disposable income of the average American family used to pay debt as increased from 92% from 65%. Strangely enough, a new statistic shows that approximately the same amount of American Citizens retire with less money than they had planned for. Roughly this same percentage of persons will be financially dependent on the government, other family members or charity throughout their retirement.

If the previous statistics ring true for you, contact Credit Card Debt Consolidators today

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