Consumer debt by the numbers

Posted at 3:05 PM on August 7, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

The Federal Reserve today reported that consumers have paid down their credit cards and reduced debt for the fifth straight month. The cut is much steeper than what analysts had expected. In June, the Fed says, Americans cut outstanding consumer debt by $10.3 billion.

Let's go behind the numbers on that one.

There are 304,059,724 million people in the U.S. On a per-capita basis, consumer debt was reduced by a little over $33.

Not everyone has consumer debt, of course, but almost every household does. There are an estimated 111,161,226 households. On average, households reduced their total debt in June by about $92.65.

How much more to go before we have this debt paid off? There's $2.5 trillion in consumer debt still out there, or $22,514 per household.

If we reduce that at the rate of $96 a month, we'll be good to go in about 20 years.

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