This photo taken with a mobile phone on Feb 7, 2025 shows a customer shopping for eggs at a Walmart in El Monte, Los Angeles county, California, the United States. [Photo/Xinhua]
Household debt in the United States hit a record high of $18.8 trillion in the first quarter of the year, a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found, as some consumers found it increasingly difficult to pay their bills and manage their debts.
The findings from the quarterly report on household debt and credit, released in mid-May by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Center for Microeconomic Data, said that US households owed money on mortgages, credit cards, autos and student loans. The overall increase in debt was driven by higher balances on auto loans and mortgages.
"It's a struggle to keep our finances in check," Sarah, 39, a married mother-of-two from Brooklyn, New York, told China Daily. She admitted feeling "embarrassed" about how high her debt was and declined to give her surname.
"With our mortgage payment and what we owe on our credit cards, student loans and the cost of having two young kids under five, it's a lot. We feel like we're barely above water some months. My husband works full-time, I'm a freelancer. It gets me down, yes, it feels embarrassing for sure."
