NJ has highest average credit card debt
Nationally, credit card balance was $1.263T
By: Daniel Munoz
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... New Jersey consumers have some of the nation's highest credit card balances, recent data has shown.
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An August [2026] report by personal finance website LendingTree showed the state with the highest average credit card balance at $9,733.
..... Data released in March 2026 by personal fiance website WalletHub showed that the average user in New Jersey had $8,803 of credit card debt, the fifth highest in the nation.
.....Others also have New Jersey in the top 10, including consumer credit reporting agency TransUnion, which had the Garden State with a $7,139 credit card balance. Alaska had the highest credit card balance in the TransUnion report at $7,799.
..... Experian, another credit reporting agency, said in a June [2026] report that the average credit card debt for New Jersey in early 2026 was $7,464.
..... Different studies use different methodologies to come up with their average, looking at different time periods and resuming the numbers in different ways.
..... Nationally, Americans' credit card balance's was $1.263 trillion in the second quarter of 2026, according to consumer debt data from the Federal R4eserve Bank of New York. that's up from $1.242 trillion in the first three months of the year. [2026]
..... For its August [2026] report, LendingTree analyzed the credit report data from the first quarter of 2026 for over 400,000 LendingTree users. It includes retail credit cards, like you might get from a clothing store, said LendingTree's chief consumer finance analyst, Matt Schulz.
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New Jersey's high credit card debt doesn't necessarily come as a surprise, as the Experian numbers show that New York City metro area consumes had a credit card balance of $7,464, the 17th highest in the nation out of 100 metro areas.
..... And sure, New Jersey is expensive, Schulz admitted.
..... but "it's not really a coincidence that the states with the highest credit card debt tend to be also the highest income states, because a credit card usurers is more likely to give a big credit line to somebody making $150,000 a year than to one making $50,000," he said.
Inflation drove higher credit card usage
..... "One way to think about this is that credit cards act as the shock absorber of household finances," said Ahmed Albrolisy, who teaches finance and economics at the Rutgers Business School in Newark.
..... "Credit card data often reflects the earliest signs of financial pressure because it is the most flexible form of consumer borrowing."
..... Prices and interest rates increased following the COVID-19 recession. Inflation surged in 2022 to a 40-year-high across the U.S.
..... Wages didn't keep up with inflation, and more people relied on credit cards for daily needs - everything form gas to utilities and clothing, said Chip Lupo, an analysts at WalletHub.
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"The federal government overreached to the pandemic," said Jeffrey Otteau, managing partner and chief economist for the Otteau Group, a real estate consultant in Old Bridge.
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"It would've been hard to know how much was needed - it ended up being $5 trillion that they poured into the economy to jump-start it, to prevent a complete meltdown."
..... But "not all of it was needed," Otteau said, and "government stimulus was one of the drivers of inflation."
..... Late payments and credit card debt loads have risen in recent years and credit card companies have responded
by tightening their lending standards, said Ted Rossman, an analyst at the personal finance website BankRate.
.... Delinquencies reached a high in 2023 - except for the record-high during the Great Recession - but have begun to trend downward in recent years, LendingTree said.
Tips for tracking high debt
..... "It is important for people to understand that they do have more power over managing their credit card debt than they might think they do," said LendTree's Schulz.
..... Rossman of BankRate said consumers can sign up for a credit card with a 0% balance transfer promotion. Many last up to 24 months, which gives consumers "a tremendous tailwind for your debt payoff efforts."
..... "Another good option is to work with a reputable nonprofit credit counselor" who can "negotiate something like a 6% rate over four or five years," he continued. "You don't even need good credit,' Rossman said.
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"And they won't be scared off if you have a hefty credit card balance, whereas the balance transfer approach works best if you have solid credit and owe less than $5,000 or $6,000."
..... Asking for a lower interest rate could actually work, Schulz said, as can working with the credit card company when a person has fallen on hard times financially.
..... "It's important to let your lender know sooner rather than later, because they're a whole lot more likely to work with you - more happily - if you are calling them in advance of being three or four late payments in.