Truth about Credit Card Debt

As the myth goes Americans, on average, carry around $9,000 of credit card debt. In reality most Americans carry $0 and of the households that do carry over a balance the figure is actually closer to $2,200 according to an article that appeared on MSN today. The article goes on to claim that over a quarter of American households do not even have credit cards and another 31.5% of people paid off their cards. Together that means that over 56% of all American households have ZERO credit card debt.

The article, siting a recent survey of 4522 people, also found that the amount of non-mortagage debt held by Americans is much lower than previously thought. Of the people surveyed 40% had a credit card balance less than $1000 and 15% had a balance over $10,000. Minus mortage debt 48% of all consumers have debt balance less than $5000. A far cry from the idea that on average we all have 9K.