Credit card balances are ticking higher in 2025, according to a new quarterly report on household debt from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Balances rose by $27 billion in the second quarter to a collective $1.21 trillion — in line with last year’s all-time high. The total is up 2.3% from the previous quarter.
At the same time, “we are still seeing elevated delinquency rates for credit cards,” the New York Fed researchers found, with 6.93% of balances transitioning to delinquency over the last year.
“This looks to be a little bit of catch up,” the researchers said on a press call Tuesday, in part due to “unusual leniency during the pandemic” and because consumers “may have overextended themselves” as inflation spurred higher costs in the years since.
“Those are things we have been keeping an eye on,” the New York Fed Researchers said.
