Consumer Credit Card Debt Has Biggest Q2 Jump In Years

Unemployment has been improving, second quarter GDP growth estimates have been revised up, and consumer confidence recently hit a seven-year high, so we already knew that the recovery was finally starting to reach Main Street. But it’s startling how quickly that has translated into rising credit card debt.

“While U.S. consumers paid down roughly $32.5 billion in outstanding credit card debt during the first quarter of 2014, we erased nearly all of that with the largest Q2 debt build-up witnessed since the Great Recession,” writes Odysseas Papadimitriou for CardHub, projecting that US consumers will pick add $54.79 billion in credit card debt in 2014.