Credit card debt is a monster but it may not be as bad as it seems

A recent report shows Americans are drowning in credit card debt -- at nearly $36-billion overall. The average Texas household owes more than ten grand in credit card debt.

Sadly, Bankrate.com's Ted Rossman says a Fed rate cut will not ride to our rescue. He says the quarter point cut in July did very little.

"That only brought the average credit card rate from 17.8% to 17.6%; so it went from very high to just a shade below very high. It only saved a dollar a month for people who are making minimum payments."

But there is some good news.

"The Fed has this debt to income ratio that they've been tracking since 1980 and right now, even though by some measures household debt is at or near record highs, the debt to income ratio is actually near its lowest point in the 40 years they've been tracking it."

Rossman says some of the debt being counted has actually been paid off but it shows up as "debt" in the statistics.


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