What's the Truth About American's Credit Card Debt
Many sources, including the government, the media, and even bank officials, have claimed that the American people have a lot of credit card debt. There are many rumors going around saying that Americans owe thousands of dollars each in credit card debt. They usually will give statistics with their claims to help back the claims up. However the truth about Americans credit card debt is often skewed and hidden. The only way to see the truth is to break down the numbers.
You may have heard the statistic that the average American has more than $8,000 in credit card debt. While this statistic is true, it only holds true if you're considering every American in the country. Most statistics don't include every American, only those that have credit cards. Thus our image of the average American family with a house and kids is skewed as not all of these "average" Americans have credit card debt. The problem is when they mention the word average in their statistics we are lead to believe that it's this type of family that we often think of when in fact they actually use the mean of the people who have credit card debt.
The truth is that most American households don't have debt. In fact only about 1 in 20 American households have $8,000 or more in debt. This means that the majority of American families have paid off their credit cards or don't have credit cards. Out of the remaining households, most of them only owe $2,000 or less. An average can't tell you how much the average American owes as it's a skewed number.
The reason that the truth about credit card debt is hidden is because of how they got the $8,000 number. They got it by taking $750 billion, which is all the outstanding credit card debt, and divided it by 84 million, which is the number of American households that have credit cards. While this may seem reasonable at first glance it's just a myth when you're talking about the average American household.
An astounding 23.8% of American households don't even have credit cards! These households weren't included in the calculation since they don't have credit cards. Another 31.2% of Americans pay off their cards as soon as they get the bill. This totals to an astounding 55% of American households that have no credit card debt.
For the $1,000+ range there are only 29% that are in that range and only 21% of households that owe $2,000 or more. Finally we can see that only 4% of households owe $10,000+ and 1% of American households have credit card debt in excess of $21,000. We can see that very little to nothing is owed by most of the American households. There are only 21% of American households that actually owe more than $2,000 in credit card debt. This is only 1/5 American households that owe a decent amount of money to credit card companies and we can see that the $8,000 is nowhere near what the average American household owes in credit card debt.
You may have heard the statistic that the average American has more than $8,000 in credit card debt. While this statistic is true, it only holds true if you're considering every American in the country. Most statistics don't include every American, only those that have credit cards. Thus our image of the average American family with a house and kids is skewed as not all of these "average" Americans have credit card debt. The problem is when they mention the word average in their statistics we are lead to believe that it's this type of family that we often think of when in fact they actually use the mean of the people who have credit card debt.
The truth is that most American households don't have debt. In fact only about 1 in 20 American households have $8,000 or more in debt. This means that the majority of American families have paid off their credit cards or don't have credit cards. Out of the remaining households, most of them only owe $2,000 or less. An average can't tell you how much the average American owes as it's a skewed number.
The reason that the truth about credit card debt is hidden is because of how they got the $8,000 number. They got it by taking $750 billion, which is all the outstanding credit card debt, and divided it by 84 million, which is the number of American households that have credit cards. While this may seem reasonable at first glance it's just a myth when you're talking about the average American household.
An astounding 23.8% of American households don't even have credit cards! These households weren't included in the calculation since they don't have credit cards. Another 31.2% of Americans pay off their cards as soon as they get the bill. This totals to an astounding 55% of American households that have no credit card debt.
For the $1,000+ range there are only 29% that are in that range and only 21% of households that owe $2,000 or more. Finally we can see that only 4% of households owe $10,000+ and 1% of American households have credit card debt in excess of $21,000. We can see that very little to nothing is owed by most of the American households. There are only 21% of American households that actually owe more than $2,000 in credit card debt. This is only 1/5 American households that owe a decent amount of money to credit card companies and we can see that the $8,000 is nowhere near what the average American household owes in credit card debt.
About the Author:
Layla Vanderbilt is the webmaster for a leading website that offers for bad debt consolidation advice and guidance.
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