
Congressional calls to put a cap on credit card interest rates have become a bipartisan concern in recent months, particularly as those rates now average out to around 28.6%.
But while those rates are at a historic high, according to a new industry survey, the country’s total credit card indebtedness has declined.
The Miami-based WalletHub, which specializes in credit scores, is reporting that America’s total credit card debt has now hit the $1.3 trillion mark. And while that is hardly small potatoes, that figure is a significant $113 billion less than what it was at the beginning of the Great Recession.
That’s because, looking at the figures through the prism of inflation, overall credit card debt has largely been on the downside since the high of the Great Recession, only seeing a particularly upward trend in the last year,
Altogether, notes the WalletHub survey, “consumers paid off roughly $11 billion in credit card debt” during the first quarter of this year. That debt is some 27% less than where things stood as the country pulled itself out of the Great Recession in 2009 and 2010.
Meanwhile, credit card finance charges now total more than $166 billion, a decline from the $180 billion seen at the end of last year, but still very much on the high side.
By way of comparison, while almost all numbers in finance looked lousy during the immediate years of the Great Recession, credit card finance charges then stood at around $111 billion.
The credit card rate incline has prompted Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley and Vermont Democrat Senator Bernie Sanders to offer legislation that would cap rates at the 10% mark.
In introducing what is officially called the “10 Percent Credit Card Interest Rate Cap Act,” Sanders declared: “When large financial institutions charge over 25% interest on credit cards, they are not engaged in the business of making credit available. They are engaged in extortion and loan sharking.”
The Hawley and Sanders legislation is now being reviewed in the Senate’s Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.
July 11, 2025
By Garry Boulard
Photo courtesy of Pixabay