— A concrete example as of 2002. In a Reader’sDigest article, a prudent couple in their 50s were working diligently to pay off total credit card debt of USD 4k. This was a typical household credit card debt level as of 2000. Note this American couple, with their strong financial discipline, are not irresponsible, immature, reckless big spenders.

— “current” snapshot of household credit-card debt level

2023 https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/credit-cards/average-credit-card-debt-household shows $18k/household, but excludes those households without credit card debt.

Q: are borrowers (like me) who pay off every monthly statement excluded from the sample, or included?
%%A: probably Included with a small outstanding amount. The stats come from a snapshot of every card’s outstanding amount. Even if you pay off every statement balance, your card can still show “unbilled purchases” that will go to the next statement.

2023 Fed news release (widespread media coverage) showed a snapshot level close to $1000B credit card debt across all U.S.-issued cards. Highly reliable data, of entire population, not some “unbiased sample”.  Assuming 125 million households, we get $8k/household, but this “population” of data points include those non-card-users.