Credit card debt drops 8% since January

According to the U.S. Credit Score Climate Report issued by CreditKarma.com, a consumer credit advocate, today released its with trend data for June 2012. Across the nation, credit card debt fell eight percent to $5,576 since the beginning of the year.
“The lackluster economy is partially to blame for the positive trend of decreasing credit card debt,” said Ken Lin, CEO of CreditKarma.com. “Consumers tend to take on more credit card debt when they feel more confident about their jobs and the economy. Because of the lack of confidence, I think we’ll continue to see credit card debt decrease throughout the year.”
Credit scores fell six points since January to 655 – the lowest national credit score since the group began tracking in February 2009.
Since January, the average consumer with an account has:

  • Decreased home mortgage debt by one percent to $166,325.
  • Decreased home equity debt by 0.6 percent to $46,061.
  • Increased auto loan debt by 5.0 percent to $15,818.
  • Increased student loan debt by 16 percent to $29,390.
    Other interesting trends:
    Consumers may be shifting from owning homes to renting – in June 2010, 38 percent of Karma members had mortgage debt compared to 27 percent in June 2012.
    On average, consumers with student debt have more than four student loan accounts. This is up from 3.4 from last year and 3.7 since January 2012. Maryland ($33,667), has the highest amount of student debt.
    Consumers are buying fewer cars, but those cars are more expensive – auto debt is up from a year ago, but the percentage of consumers with auto debt dropped from 41 percent to 38 percent nationally. Wyoming ($19,762), Texas ($19,096) and Alaska ($19,081) have the highest amount of auto debt while Wisconsin ($13,264) and Oregon ($13,479) have the least.

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