One Third of Americans Have More Credit Card Debt Than Savings

Statista ^ | 10/20/2025 | Anna Fleck

[SeekAndFind]

One in three Americans now have more credit card debt than emergency savings, according to the latest survey by financial services company Bankrate.

As Statista's Anna Flecks shows in the chart below, this is up ten percentage points from 2011, when the company first started polling the question.

Meanwhile, around 53 percent of respondents said that their savings were currently exceeding their credit card debt.

This is down two percentage points from the same time last year, but slightly up from 2011.

Around one in ten Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck in 2025, not making any debt or saving up money.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Millennials were the most likely to say that they had tapped into their emergency savings over the past 12 months.

The most common uses for emergency savings among all groups were unplanned emergency expenses, such as car repairs or medical bills, followed by monthly bills, including rent and mortgages, followed by day-to-day expenses such as food.

[DIRTYSECRET]

Maybe it’s because they’re stupid.

[hole_n_one]

I guess the No Credit Card Debt and Savings was left off the graphic so as to not rub it in.

[dragnet2]

[Veto!]

I use my credit cards every month and pay them off every month.

Card issuers keep offering more credit, but I fon’t need or want it.

[proxy_user]

One man’s debt is another man’s asset.

Which one are you?

[glorgau]

And some of us are living off the funds generated by our savings.

[MtnClimber]

I pay off my debt with my credit card. As an old India professor said, “You don’t have to call it Deewoes. You can call it Chircles.”

[metmom]

People have never been taught to budget and not impulse buy everything they lay their eyes on.

A little self-control could go a LONG way in resolving most of those issues.

[newzjunkey]

Only a third? Lol

[FreeperCell]

What I’m thinking.

[alexander_busek]

I guess the No Credit Card Debt and Savings was left off the graphic so as to not rub it in.

I, too, caught that! But then I saw that they had simply subsumed that into "Savings higher than credit card debt."

Regards,

[frank ballenger]

I was caught in the quicksand of credit card debt. The amount between the monthly payments’ lowering of the amount owed and the maximum was all such a person has.

I feel sorry for anyone still in that horror.

[frank ballenger]

Oldie 45 rpm single by the Limeliters.

“A Dollar Down”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSqoL2S8WPI

1961 and got a lot more common later on.

[BradyLS]

Even if it’s just a dollar ahead versus a dollar behind, you sleep better a dollar ahead.

[albie]

And I’m betting that over half of these people are them Yogi

[SisterK]

A little self-control could go a LONG way in resolving most of those issues.

exactly
be able to separate your needs from your wants

[SisterK]

A little self-control could go a LONG way in resolving most of those issues.

exactly
be able to separate your needs from your wants

[OrangeHoof]

Not me. I just went through bankruptcy thanks to credit card debt. Now that I’m back at zero, I don’t find I need the plastic. Just have to be careful to stay out of hospitals and courtrooms.

[AZJeep]

Seems to me Biden contributed the most for the multiplication of them.