Record Household Debt, Jump In Delinquencies Signal “Worsening Financial Distress”, Fed Warns

While the market remains focused on tomorrow’s CPI print, and to a lesser extent the April retail sales reports, which will both be released at 8:30am on May 15. we should flag another important report that doesn’t typically get a lot of attention: the New York Fed’s Household Debt and Credit Report for 1Q 2024 which was just published, and where the latest data on credit card debt and delinquencies has recently been the most important part of the report.

While we already know that in the latest monthly consumer credit report published by the Fed last week and covering the month of March, total consumer debt hit a record high (despite a sharp slowdown in credit card growth) even as the personal savings rate plunged to an all-time low, hardly a ringing endorsement for the strength of the US consumer…

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A controlled demolition of the middle class and the poor…

…brought to you by the Fed and the U.S. government…

When a country embarks on deficit financing (Bush-, Obama-, Trump-, Bidenomics) and inflationism (Quantitative easing) you wipe out the middle class and wealth is transferred from the middle class and the poor to the rich.
– Ron Paul

“Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.”
– Ron Paul