 |
| Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / freedigitalphotos.net |
According to information released last year by the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York, the percentage of American consumers with at least
one account serviced by collection agencies or collection attorneys fell sharply
in 2013, particularly during the third quarter.
This is despite average account balances increasing—a trend that is just
now changing from the previous year and a half.
This trend has been interpreted to mean that consumers are
paying down debts with smaller balances first, leaving their accounts with
higher balances to collect further interest charges. These accounts observed in the survey include
a small percentage of credit accounts, but most were accounts held by parties
collecting on medical bills and utility bills.
Also on the FRBNY report was a general outstanding
household debt that showed the largest quarter-to-quarter increase since 2008. Among these debts, balances on mortgage
accounts ($56 billion), student loans ($33 billion), auto loans ($31 billion)
and credit card debt ($4 billion) were among the top consumer debt balances
held by Americans in 2013.
Donghoon Lee, senior research economist at the New York
Fed, stated “[In the third quarter of 2013], we observed an increase of
household balances across essentially all types of debt. With non-housing debt
consistently increasing and the factors pushing down mortgage balances waning,
it appears that households have crossed a turning point in the deleveraging
cycle.”
The final numbers of Q3 in 2013 showed American household
debt at $11.28 trillion, which is only 11% below its peak in 2008 of $12.68
trillion. Other trends include:
- Student loan balances appearing on credit reports increased $33 billion to $1.03 trillion.
- Auto loan balances increased for the 10 straight quarter, up $31 billion to $845 billion.
- Credit card balances increased $4 billion to $672 billion.
- Total mortgage debt increased to $7.9 trillion, up $56 billion.
No comments:
Post a Comment