The financial health of the U.S. isn’t looking too good, judging from Americans’ growing dependency on credit cards. Americans have been increasingly turning to their credit cards to make ends meet. The result s that credit card debt has soared. Credit card balances have soared to unprecedented levels, surpassing the $1 trillion threshold for the first time in history.

According a New York Federal Reserve report, credit card balances went up a staggering $45 billion in the second quarter. This increase drove the total credit card debt owed by Americans to an astonishing $1.03 trillion, a new record high.

The escalation in credit card debt was a significant contributor to the overall rise in household debt, which reached a peak of $17.06 trillion, driven by an uptick of about $16 billion.

“Household budgets have benefited from excess savings and pandemic-related debt forbearances over the past three years, but the remnants of those benefits are coming to an end,” Elizabeth Renter, data analyst at personal finance site NerdWallet, told CNBC. “Credit card delinquencies continue an upward trend, a growing sign that consumers are feeling the pinch of high prices and lower savings balances than they had just a few years ago.”

Credit card debt is affecting people of all income levels. Bankrate reported that households with higher incomes are also seeing high credit card debt. Around 72 percent of cardholders with annual household incomes of $100,000 or more have been carrying credit card debt for at least a year.

And things don’t look like they will get better.

“One trillion dollars in credit card debt is staggering,” LendingTree Chief Credit Analyst Matt Schulz, told The Washington Post. “Unfortunately, it is likely only going to keep growing from here.”

As credit card use grew, so did the delinquency rate.

Credit card debt 30 or more days later climbed to 7.2 percent in the second quarter, central bank officials said.

“This is an issue because the sustainability of consumers’ pandemic debt-binge was partially predicated upon their incomes steadily rising,” Troy Ludtka, senior U.S. economist at SMBC Nikko, said in a client note, as per CNBC. “Instead, the opposite occurred, and now the rate at which borrowers are running late on their debt payments is back to pre-Covid levels. This could be the newest challenge facing embattled commercial banks.”

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-brown-credit-card-and-cellphone-5198284/