Economics
Americans Put More on Credit Cards as Inflation Boosts Costs, Fed Data Show
- Inflation requires Americans to borrow more for essentials
- Mortgage originations dropped in first quarter as rates rise
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Americans are putting more on their credit cards and taking out fewer mortgages, as they need to increasingly borrow to cover the higher cost of everyday essentials and respond to rising interest rates.
There were a record 537 million credit card accounts in the first quarter, a jump of 31 million over the past year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s quarterly report on household debt and credit. Meantime, mortgage originations totaled $859 billion in the first three months of 2022, the lowest in nearly two years.