>How do they calculate that part of credit card debt that is paid off at
>the end of every month? The only time in 30 years of using credit cards
>that I ever paid any interest was once when the envelope carrying the
>payment slipped down between the car seat and the passenger door and only
>showed up about 3 weeks later. Yet there have been times when, for the
>period between making the charge and the arrival of the bill my balance
>would have been very high. I presume this practice accounts for some
>substantial proportion of credit card debt, but is it really debt?
The Fed's numbers only report the total outstanding stock of consumer credit, which has been rising more rapidly than income for as long as spreadsheets can remember (with a few exceptions, like the 1990-91 credit crunch).
By paying off the balance every month you're what's known as a "deadbeat" in the trade.
Doug