According to a recent study, credit card debt dropped nationwide by $93 billion in 2009. Though this is good news enough, one should know a hard fact. The industry experts are of the opinion that the charge-offs reached at its highest rate in the later part of the year.

The use of credit cards has been under scrutiny since the recession set in. After scrutiny it was found that 90% of the decrease in credit card debt was because of bad debt being charged-off. This write-down reached a record level in February, 2009. It reached to a level of 8.82%, which is 300 points higher than that of 2008. Thus, in reality the total decrease in debt is only $10 billion.

On an average, each American household has about $10,700 in credit card debt and 9 credit cards in total. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, about 56% of the consumers have been carrying unpaid balance on their credit cards in the last 12 months. Even the delinquency rate has increased. It had already crossed the 6% mark in February last year.

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