Credit card debt tops $1.28 trillion

Americans ended 2025 more in debt than ever before.

Credit card balances hit a fresh high in the fourth quarter, rising by $44 billion to $1.28 trillion, according to a new report on household debt by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released Tuesday. That’s a 5.5% jump from a year earlier.

The central bank’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations, released Monday, also found that fewer consumers expect their households’ financial situations to be better off a year from now — and a larger share expect to be worse off.

Even as the job market shows signs of strain, consumer spending has largely stayed strong. However, that has been attributed to robust buying by higher-end consumers, other research shows.

“You see evidence consistent with a ‘K-shaped’ economy,” the New York Fed researchers said. “Some groups are really struggling.”

That’s not just apparent in the number of auto loan, credit card and home equity lines of credit delinquencies, the New York Fed researchers said. “You also see that in rising mortgage delinquency rates,” the researchers said, referring to the growing number of homeowners who are falling behind on their mortgage payments.

Across the board, “elevated delinquency rates are more pronounced in the lowest-income areas,” the Fed researchers also found.