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Household Debt to GDP
About This Indicator
What Is Household Debt to GDP?
What American households and nonprofit organizations owe, divided by GDP, roughly the nation's income: mortgages, credit cards, and auto and student loans, plus the nonprofits' own bonds and loans. Federal Reserve data, quarterly from late 1951, yearly before.
Why Does It Matter?
Borrowing lets families buy homes years early, but when many are stretched at once, a downturn makes them cut back together, and one family's cutback is another's lost sale.
Can Politics Influence It?
Lending rules, bankruptcy law, student lending, and mortgage interest tax rules reach it. Interest rates and house prices move it more, since mortgages are most of it.
Key Idea
Across many countries, a fast climb in this ratio, more than a high level, has tended to come before slower growth. A fall need not mean debts repaid: from 2008 to 2013 it fell about a sixth, mostly because the economy grew, while debt fell only about 7%, much of it written off.
Not Scored
Source: Computed here. Household debt divided by GDP, from the two series above.
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