Credit card debt is at $1.263 $1 trillion in the United States and is part of $18.8 trillion in total household debt in the first quarter, according to data which was released by the Center for Microeconomic Data of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York earlier today, Tuesday, August 11, 2026.
Credit Card Debt at $1.263 Trillion in the United States
The balances of credit cards increased by approximately $21 billion and stood at $1.263 trillion. “Delinquency rates across most products have held steady over the past two years,” according to Joelle Scally — who is the economic policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — in this official press release. “Still, new delinquencies for auto loans and credit cards remain at elevated levels, a trend we’ll continue to monitor.”
Credit card debt exceeded $1 trillion in the United States for the first time as reported on Tuesday, August 8, 2023 at a time when interest rates were the highest that they had been in 22 years. Back then, more citizens of the United States withdrew from their retirement accounts due to financial hardship to help pay for their debts — and that alarmed some economists, as this trend could potentially lead to insolvency and even bankruptcy. Fortunately, transitions into serious delinquency were generally unchanged for credit cards during the first quarter of 2026.
Don’t Be Sold — Unless You Can Afford “Free” Travel
Many sites that purportedly report on travel rely on promoting credit card applications as a significant source of income; and some of them will do whatever they can to convince you to apply for a credit card through one of their affiliate links — including telling you that you can “travel for free”. Although there is technically nothing wrong with selling credit card applications and doing so is certainly not illegal, some of them will tell you how they traveled for a paltry sum of money on a trip that would have otherwise cost tens of thousands of dollars.
While that may be true, most credit cards have a minimum amount of spend to procure tens of thousands — or even hundreds of thousands — of bonus miles or points in addition to what you would normally earn. For example, you can earn 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points after using your new Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card to spend $6,000.00 on eligible purchases during the first three months. The annual fee is a whopping $795.00 for this credit card.
If you can afford to spend a minimum of $6,000.00 within the first three months with the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card — as well as the annual fee of $795.00 — then you can certainly enjoy traveling, as the offer is generally a good deal…
…but even if you do not spend a dime on travel, it is hardly free — especially if you were not planning on spending a minimum of $6,795.00 within three months — and that does not include opportunity costs.
Final Boarding Call
If you cannot afford to spend several thousand dollars within a few months and you still participate in an offer, then you will be paying interest on any balance that is not paid on time — and therefore be contributing to the mounting credit card debt in the United States.
No amount of miles or points is worth being in financial debt, in my opinion.
All photographs ©2015, ©2019, ©2023, and ©2025 by Brian Cohen.
