US households added $266bn to their debt balances in the first quarter, led by mortgage loans, in the largest single-quarter increase since 2006, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The borrowing took US household debt to $15.84tn, or $1.7tn above pre-pandemic levels, researchers at the Fed branch said in a report on Tuesday. But consumers’ balance sheets are much stronger than they were before the onset of coronavirus in early 2020.
Household credit card balances declined by $15bn in the quarter as borrowers paid down some of last year’s holiday spending. But the seasonal decline was more modest than normal and credit card balances were still $71bn higher than a year before.