Americans Spent $104 Billion On Credit Card Interest And Fees

credit cards

The amount of money Americans spent on credit card interest and fees rose 11% in 2017, totaling a staggering $104 billion. Magnify Money crunched the numbers from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and said that the double-digit increase is a result of rising interest rates. 

The Federal Reserve is expected to increase the interest rates two more times this year which could drive the amount of money consumers spend on their debt up by another 10% in 2018. The rising rates impact everything from credit cards to mortgages.

"[Magnify Money's] analysis of the impact of Fed rate hikes found credit card rates are the most sensitive to Fed rate hikes, rising more than twice as fast as mortgage rates."

Americans currently hold around $1.04 trillion in revolving credit card debt and carry over unpaid balances of $687 billion every month. 

This estimate includes people paying interest, as well as those carrying a balance on a card with a 0% intro rate. We based the estimate on a CFPB study of credit card account data that found 29% of total credit card balances are paid off each month, implying 71% of credit card balances revolve each month.

Photo: Getty Images


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