Ted Rossman, the senior industry analyst at Bankrate.com who led the study, told Insider just 54% of cardholders pay their bills in full every month, and that credit card debt is often several multiples higher than most other forms of debt. Nor does credit card debt build any value, unlike homes or a college education.
"I would argue that it's easier to pay off $6,000 in debt if you have $100,000 of income versus if you owe a little bit less, $4,000 or $5,000, but your income is substantially lower," Rossman said. Massachusetts had the lowest credit card debt burden, despite ranking 19th in debt and 3rd in income. DC, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and California made the top five for lowest debt burden.Despite last week's Fed decision, relief for cardholders may not come anytime soon. The Federal Open Market Committee at its June meeting, putting a pause on the Fed's 10 consecutive increases in 15 months. This left the target benchmark borrowing rate between 5% and 5.25%.
"Your credit card rates are not going to go up this month, but I would say it almost doesn't matter if your rates 21% or 20% or 19%," Rossman said."They're all really high, so that's where I think it just really speaks to that urgency that people should have to pay off this high-cost debt as quickly as possible."such as shelter, which increased 0.6% in May, up from 0.4% in April 2023. Transportation services jumped 0.8% for the month, in contrast to the 0.