The total amount of debt held by American households climbed by $226 billion to $12.6 trillion in 2016—the most in a decade, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The surge is driven by broad and steady increases in credit card debt, auto and student loans, and a fourth-quarter surge to the highest amount of mortgage originations since before the financial crisis, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Total U.S. household debts are now just $99 billion shy of the all-time peak of $12.7 trillion set in the third quarter of 2008 just as the banking system began crashing. The New York Fed estimates that debt is highly likely to set a new record in 2017.
“Debt held by Americans is approaching its previous peak, yet its composition today is vastly different as the growth in balances has been driven by non-housing debt,” says Wilbert van der Klaauw, an economist at the New York Fed. The New York Fed doesn’t adjust its figures for inflation.
