Consumer Credit Spiked In May, Fed Data Shows

Email

Share

Outstanding credit among U.S consumers increased by $17.7 billion in May, with nearly two thirds of that coming in the form of revolving credit, which includes credit card spending.

Revolving credit outstanding had actually shrunk through the first four months of the year, down $4.4 billion according to revised information provided by the Federal Reserve. Add that to the $15.3 billion in reduced revolving credit seen between 2009 and 2011, and this one type of debt had been down by nearly $20 billion over the past three and one-third years.











The increase exceeded the estimates of every expert surveyed by Bloomberg News, including TD Securities’ Millan Mulraine. “When the economy’s not doing well, that’s when you want the consumer to spend, and if it means borrowing to do that, then that certainly would be encouraged,” Mulraine told Bloomberg’s Michelle Jamrisko.