Holiday shopping is well underway, and with the Fed widely expected to raise interest rates next week, the country entered the fourth quarter of 2015 after two consecutive quarters setting post-recession records for consumer credit card debt. A study by CardHub released today (Wednesday) revealed that US consumers racked up $21.3 billion in new credit card debt from July through September, which is a 34 percent increase over the same time period last year, and the most for the third quarter of the year since 2009. Add to that the $32 billion second quarter build-up, and this puts consumers on pace to close 2015 with a roughly $68.5 billion increase in credit card debt. If the projections hold true, the average household will ring in 2016 owing more than $8,000 in credit card debt, a threshold that hasn’t been crossed since 2008.
