All About The Credit Card Debt Statistics
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I read some data about personal credit card debt today that quickly blew my mind. There have been three things that stuck out hugely to me. First was that the average credit card debt in America is $15,788. The second one was that the average person in the America has 3.5 credit cards. The third and most shocking point was that the average rate of interest was 14.99%. Seriously!
There are actually a lot of reasons for all of this. The first major reason is that currently unemployment numbers are still very high. The less people work, the more of the chance that they are going to be piling up the credit card debt. This is also true because there has been a decrease in the number of hours for those individuals who are employed. So they really are only taking home less cash. While they are taking home less cash they most likely are still spending the same that they were when they were making more. Where’s the outlet? Credit cards.
I believe that the number of credit cards the typical consumer has along with the amount of credit card debt that they have on these cards can be contributed to just how simple it really is for individuals to get credit cards. Banks spend a lot of money on marketing the lifestyle that you could live when you purchase items using credit cards. They make it look exciting to spend money. So there has been a pretty picture painted with how spending on credit cards can be.
Once the pretty picture of credit card debt is painted. Chances are they mail bomb anyone with their credit pulled recently. The banks are actually allowed to buy credit information and that can target those people who might have either recently applied for a financial loan or another credit card. They then send out credit card offers to those people with predicatively a much higher response rate because they already are in the game. (This data anyway is the same reason you receive a bunch of telephone calls and mailers once you apply for a home finance loan. It’s called Trigger data, because it is triggered when you get your credit pulled.)
So while a person might have lots of cash on one credit card. They will get an even better offer on a new credit card. This is contributed to the average number of cards being almost 4. These come in the mail and signing up takes very little effort. Personally I enrolled in a Citi card the other day and was shocked at how fast I was approved. The more shocking part was how fast I got the card. That card arrived in less then five days.
The biggest issue with credit debt in the US though is our, “keep up with the Jones’s” lifestyle. It’s been engrained into the fabric of our society that we have to have as nice of things as our neighbors. So you see this at all times. We have a culture which is based throughout the collection of material possession. This mindset plays straight into the advertising of the credit card issuers. The credit card companies makes it simple to spend the money.
The final outcome to tap into this is scary. The total U.S. personal debt is $2.45 trillion, as of March 2010. Americans have an overabundance debt than any country in the world. It’s no surprise that a lot of people are searching for credit card debt relief like Indiana debt relief or Virginia debt relief. People get in over their heads and realize that they may need Debt Settlement to help them get Debt Relief and let them know how to eliminate credit card debt. Therefore, control your urges to spend and avoid being like the average American with almost $16,000 credit card debt.