After three consecutive months of decline, Americans reversed course in May, adding $1.6 billion in revolving credit. At an annualized rate, consumer credit jumped nearly 3% during May perhaps impacted by a slowdown in consolidation financing via home mortgages. The increase is still significantly lower than one-year ago when consumers added more than $5 billion to revolving credit. According to revised figures released Thursday by the Federal Reserve, at the end of May 2004 Americans owed $742.8 billion in revolving credit, compared to $727.9 billion for May 2003. Bank credit card debt (excluding store and gas credit cards) at the end of the first quarter was $658.9 billion, or roughly 88% of total revolving credit, according to CardData (www.carddata.com). At the end of May, Americans were $2031.2 billion in debt, excluding home mortgages.
| REVOLVING CREDIT HISTORICAL ($billions) |
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| May 04 | Apr 04 | Mar 04 | Feb 04 | Jan04 | Dec03 | Nov03 |
| GRWTH: | 2.6% | -5.0 | -2.1 | -0.6 | 13.0 | 3.3 | 4.9 |
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| $OWED: | $742.8 | 741.2 | 744.3 | 750.4 | 753.0 | 743.4 | 743.8 |
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| Oct 03 | Sep03 | Aug 03 | Jul03 | Jun03 | May03 | Apr03 |
| GRWTH: | 4.1% | 6.8 | 3.4 | 1.4 | 2.7 | 7.7 | 3.4 |
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| $OWED: | $740.5 | 737.3 | 729.1 | 726.8 | 729.7 | 727.9 | 722.8 |
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| Source: Federal Reserve; revised figures as of 7/08/04; |
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| For complete historical data visit CardData (www.carddata.com) |
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