Here's how much credit card debt Americans have by age—and which generation owes the most (2024)

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Here's how much credit card debt Americans have by age—and which generation owes the most? ›

Gen Xers carry the most credit card debt on average, and saw their balances increase by 39% over the past year.

Gen Xers carry the most credit card debt on average, and saw their balances increase by 39% over the past year.

Total debt by age group in the U.S.

People aged 50-59 have the most credit card debt in total at $0.21 trillion, and people aged 30-39 have the most student loan debt at $0.5 trillion.

Credit Card Debt Demographics

Baby boomers and Generation X had the highest credit card balances of over $7,500 in 2022. Millennials take second place with around $6,500 in credit card debt. Cardholders 75 and over had the lowest debt, at just under $4,000.

Gen X (ages 43 to 58) not only carries the most debt on average of all the generations, but is also the debt leader in credit card and total non-mortgage debt.

18 to 29 year olds carry the least at $2900, while those in their forties carry the most at $7600. These figures show that, generally speaking, cardholders aged 30–64 possess more than the estimated credit card debt national average.

Across the different age groups in 2022, Gen Z, ages 18-25, had the lowest average credit card debt, at $2,854.

Young adults in the U.S. are experiencing a very different trajectory than their parents, with more of them hitting key milestones later in life and also taking on more debt, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

The news: Gen Z's credit card debt is growing faster than that of any other generation, according to data from Credit Karma.

Young Americans and Credit Card Debt by the Numbers

Younger consumers and those newer to owning a credit card are not exempt from credit card debt. According to the GOBankingRates survey, 28% of Americans under the age of 24 have over $1,000 in credit card debt.

What ethnicity has the best credit score? ›

While race cannot legally affect credit scores, credit score disparities still exist among various racial groups. The Urban Institute collected a series of statistics that indicate white communities have the highest median credit score at 727, which falls well into the good range on both FICO and VantageScore models.

Gen X has the highest average debt balance in all categories, except for personal loans. Here's the breakdown: Credit cards: Gen X have the highest credit card balance compared to other age groups, at $8,215. Auto loans: Gen X have the highest auto loan balance, at $21,570.

A good goal is to be debt-free by retirement age, either 65 or earlier if you want. If you have other goals, such as taking a sabbatical or starting a business, you should make sure that your debt isn't going to hold you back.

Of all generations, there's one that has more debt than the rest: Generation X. A Generation X consumer must work, on average, almost four full years to pay off all outstanding debts, compared to 3.3 years for millennials and two years for Gen Z, the youngest generation, and slightly more than baby boomers and seniors.

Americans — particularly Millennials and those with lower incomes — are becoming increasingly overextended financially: Credit card and auto loan delinquencies have not only surpassed pre-pandemic levels, they're the highest they've been in more than a decade.

A majority, 65%, say they live paycheck to paycheck, according to CNBC and SurveyMonkey's recent Your Money International Financial Security Survey, which polled 498 U.S. adults. That's a slight increase from last year's results, which found that 58% of Americans considered themselves to be living paycheck to paycheck.

According to new data from the Intuit Credit Karma platform, Gen Z and millennial credit card debt is on the rise and increasing at the fastest rates of all other generations. Since the Fed started increasing rates in March 2022, average credit card balances for Gen Z increased 62%, rising from $2,000 to $3,300.

The youngest consumers, Gen Z, have the lowest overall debt balance on average, but they struggle the most to make payments. About 12.24% of Gen Z's credit card accounts were 30 days or more past due in 2019. Gen X has the highest average debt balance in all categories, except for personal loans.

Meanwhile, the rate of increase has been slower for Gen Zers, who are between the ages of 18 and 26. However, their average credit card debt is more than twice that of millennials, growing 50% in two years, from $4,500 to $6,700.

With federal student debt totaling $1.63 trillion, the majority of federal student debt is concentrated with Generation X. The average Baby Boomer with student loans tends to owe more than the average Millennial. However, on the national scale, Millennials have a larger overall debt than Baby Boomers.