Interest payments for U.S. consumers are through the roof. Last quarter, consumers spent a record-high $1.1 trillion on interest payments alone, reported Quartz, using data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis . Over half of those interest payments were not related to mortgage debt. Mortgages often have some of the highest interest over the life of the loans. The "personal interest payments" line of BEA’s report shows that $563.2 billion of the $1.
Student loans, on the other hand, stayed relatively flat with a $2 billion increase in the last quarter of 2023.Retail cards and other consumer loans also significantly added to the total debt last year, rising by $25 billion, the Federal Reserve Bank reported."As inflation became a burden and government payments ended, consumers were willing to take on more debt," Matt Schoeppner, a senior economist at U.S. Bank, said.