Jaw-Dropping Stats About the State of Debt in America

Most Americans have some credit card debt. A recent GOBankingRates survey found that 30% of Americans have between $1,001 and $5,000 in credit card debt, 15% have $5,001 or more in credit card debt and about 6% have more than $10,000 in credit card debt. Although 6% may seem like a small amount, that means that based on the survey results, 14 million Americans have over $10,000 of credit card debt.

Here’s a look at even more jaw-dropping stats about the state of credit card debt in America.

Although 39% of Americans believe they will be able to pay off all of their credit card debt at some point in the next year, a good portion think it will take two years or longer. Twenty-four percent believe it will take a couple of years, 5% believe they will be able to pay off their debt within five years and 3% believe they will never pay it off.

A separate survey conducted by Inside 1031 found that 55% of people carry a credit card balance from month to month. In addition, 40% haven’t been credit card debt-free since before 2018 — and 15% have had credit card debt since before 2006.

The Inside 1031 survey found that 49% of Americans depend on credit cards to cover essential living expenses. This is more common among younger generations: 61% of Gen Zers and 53% of millennials use credit cards for living expenses. Conversely, only 26% of boomers rely on credit cards to cover essential expenses.

Since March 2020, nearly half of all Americans have taken on more credit card debt, the survey found. Individuals who carry a credit card balance from month to month are more than twice as likely to report having more debt now than before the pandemic.

According to the survey, 57% of Americans have missed at least one credit card payment. The most common reason for missing a payment was simply forgetting (37%), but the next most common reason was paying for food and groceries (32%).

Thirteen percent of Americans have no emergency savings and 37% currently have less than $1,000 in emergency savings, so it’s not super surprising that nearly half of Americans said they would rely on a credit card to cover a $2,000 emergency.