Consumer revolving credit, mostly credit card debt, took another dive as Americans cut more than $6 billion off in July, bringing the year-to-date total reduction to $52 billion. Posting its eleventh consecutive monthly decline, U.S. consumer revolving credit dipped to $906 billion in July. Since peaking at a revised $975 billion in the third quarter of last year, Americans have chopped-off nearly $70 billion in revolving credit to-date. According to new and revised data released by the Federal Reserve, revolving credit declined at an annual rate of 8% in July, following a revised 6% decline in June and a 12% drop in May. In June revolving credit declined to a revised $912 billion and to a revised $917 billion in May. March posted the largest contraction over the past nine months, dropping more than $14 billion. Bank credit card debt (excluding store and gas credit cards) at the end of the second quarter was about $775 billion or roughly 85% of total revolving credit, according to CardData (www.carddata.com). Store and gas credit cards had about $105 billion in outstandings at year-end 2008. At the end of July, Americans were $2472 billion in debt, excluding home mortgages.
REVOLVING CREDIT HISTORICAL ($billions)
Jul 09 Jun 09 May 09 Apr 09 Mar 09 Feb 09
GRWTH: -8.0% -6.4 -12.1 -11.7 -9.6 -13.9
$OWED: $905.6 911.7 916.6 927.9 934.3 948.4
Source: Federal Reserve; revised figures as of 9/8/09;
For complete historical data, visit CardData (www.carddata.com)
