Average American Credit Card Debt

The average American credit card debt is a statistic that has been increasingly difficult to come by over the past few years. Some have argued that it is somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to nine thousand dollars per individual. That is extremely high, and many critics have said that it is in no way accurate. Many have said that this number has been misrepresented, and that it really means that the average American household, not individual, has between eight and nine thousand dollars worth of credit card debt. Many critics have argued that this number is still way off, siting that it was calculated via the use of averages and is therefore a gross overestimation.

Many have said that the average American doesn’t have anywhere close to eight or nine thousand dollars worth of credit card debt, and while some of these sources are backed up by reliable data, none of these sources have made a definitive argument that could settle this controversy once and for all. In reality, it probably is somewhere in the middle, with the average American household carrying around three to four thousand dollars worth of credit card debt, but even that is a complete estimate.

Regardless of the actual figures, the average American credit card debt has risen over the past ten years or so at a steady pace. The increase in the pool of lenders and creative financing offers has made credit cards an easy and convenient source of financing for most Americans. Many have wondered just how long this kind of debt build up could go on, and the critics were supplied with an answer via the market correction that began to occur in late 2007 that came to a head in late 2008 with the official meltdown of the credit markets.

The so-called credit crunch took hold of America, and the economy suffered as a hole. Americans stopped borrowing as much via the use of their credit cards, and lenders began to cut back the kind of creative financing offers that were so commonplace over the years prior. Bankruptcies began to rise, and Americans were looking to debt consolidation and debt settlement to resolve their credit card debt troubles.

Statistical data has already begun to emerge that shows that Americans have begun to cut back on their spending and use of credit cards. Between the credit card companies making less offers, and providing credit at a higher price, Americans have began to use their credit cards less. Some data has actually supported that Americans are beginning to reduce their credit card debt, and many experts have predicted this trend to continue well into the next decade.

No one data source has been able to provide a true indicator into the amount of credit card debt the average American has. After the credit markets began to tighten in 2007, and with the fallout in late 2008, many data sources and other experts have predicted the average American to reduce their credit card debt loan by a significant amount. Some data has already emerged to support these predictions, and we will hopefully be able to tell the kind of affect the credit crunch has had on the average American’s credit card debt in the not too distant future.