The total U.S. household debt surged to a record $18.6 trillion in the third quarter of 2025, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported in its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, which it released on Nov. 5. Compared to the second quarter of this year, household debt is now $197 billion higher. This signals that the level of debt for working households is skyrocketing higher, as the means to pay that debt is less.
Household debt includes home mortgages, credit card debt, auto loans, student loans, and so forth.
A part of the surge of household debt is outstanding home mortgage balances, which jumped to $13.1 trillion during the third quarter. U.S. mortgage debt is now at its highest level ever, higher than the level at the onset of the 2007-09 financial meltdown and economic collapse. The level of mortgage debt has risen because the median price of a U.S. home is an astronomical $415,200, just to put a roof over a household’s head, and this necessitates borrowing.
The U.S. government debt, at $38 trillion, is an extremely important development. But there is an attempt by the financial media to focus everyone’s attention on that almost exclusively, which leaves out the critical growth in household, business, and other debt, which together are very large and give an inside reading on the functioning of the real economy.
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