Data show economy squeezing credit card holders
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Consumer advocates said price increases and high interest have many Americans, including Oregonians, drowning in debt and lawmakers have failed to protect them.
A new analysis of credit card holders found more than 40 percent of U.S. adults cannot pay off their credit card balances monthly, with interest rates nearly double those of a decade ago.
Jennifer Zhang, policy research and data analyst for the nonprofit Protect Borrowers, said the cost of borrowing just keeps rising.
"Americans owe more credit card debt than at any point in history and they are facing sky-high interest rates, which are nearly double the rates charged just a decade ago," Zhang noted. "They're over 22 percent today."
In Oregon, average credit card balances are more than $6,200 per household, which is slightly below the national average but reflects a 25 percent increase since 2021. Zhang pointed out the increase is mostly due to cost of living increases. She added the Trump administration once proposed lowering interest rates but instead made deep cuts to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Zhang blames a large part of the problem on what she called the "Trump economy," with high tariffs on imported goods and steep increases in the cost of gasoline and other sources of energy. She argued the president has only paid lip service to the problem.
"A little over two months ago, the president promised to cap credit card interest rates at 10 percent by January 20th," Zhang recounted. "We've seen that date has come and gone and there has been no real plan to make that promise a reality."
She added each day without an interest rate cap costs Americans an estimated $368 million in additional interest. Zhang stressed the poor economy is often a compounding factor when cardholders fall behind.
"Oftentimes when people are late on a credit card, it's because something else has gone catastrophically wrong," Zhang observed. "If they lost a job, if they had a large medical bill or some other surprise expense, all of those costs can really rapidly pile up, and the interest only makes it substantially worse."
