Household debt passes pre-recession peak, NY Fed finds — U.S.
household debt has surpassed its pre-recession peak for the first time, says new data from the New York Fed.
Canadian
household debt has reached record heights and there is a growing need to be more financially self - reliant in retirement as less than a third of workers today are covered by an employer pension plan.
US
household debt has been steadily decreasing.
The high level of Canadian
household debt has been cited by the Bank of Canada for years as one of its top concerns.
Over that period,
household debt has increased each quarter, on average, by almost seven per cent on a year - over-year basis, the document said.
In fact, total
household debt has fallen by 1 %.
The average amount of consumer
household debt has reached more than $ 16,000.
A 2016 report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer shows that the composition of Canadian
household debt has been relatively stable for the past 25 years.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimates that
household debt has increased from $ 8.29 trillion in 2004 to $ 12.29 trillion in 2016.
The expansion of
household debt has meant that the debt - servicing ratio — the ratio of interest payments to disposable income — has increased further over the past year (Graph 29).
The growth of gross
household debt has seen the household sector's debt to income ratio on a gradually rising trend for much of the past decade.
The ongoing accumulation of
household debt has led to a further increase in the debt - servicing ratio; interest payments as a proportion of disposable income rose to 9.3 per cent in the September quarter (Graph 23), and are expected to rise further.
A recent report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York revealed
household debt has hit a new high.
Corporate and
household debt has also been on a tear, up to 201 % of GDP at the end of the first quarter from 138 % at the end of 2008 according to Bernstein Research.
The growth in
household debt has been outpacing the very low growth in household incomes for a few years now.
Home prices continue to rise and
household debt has fallen by $ 833 billion since 2008.
Economists at TD issued a report on Tuesday revealing
that household debt has increased across all age groups during the last decade, both in absolute terms and relative to income.
In Canada,
household debt has reached an average that's approaching 150 % of disposable income, a record high.
The more Poloz and his deputies repeat their contention that the threat posed by
household debt has receded, the more confidence executives and investors will have that they can make decisions without having to worry about a snap interest - rate increase.
The benchmark interest rate would be 2.5 % now instead of 0.5 %, and
household debt would be lower by an amount equal to 5 % of GDP, according to Poloz's calculations.
At least some households would use the funds to pay down debt, meaning the money would flow to the banking sector anyway, but with one critical difference:
household debt would actually decline, leaving household balance sheets in better shape and owing less interest every month.
Poloz also notes that those Canadians with high -
household debt have actually doubled since 2008, when the global economic crisis hit.
Not exact matches
Debt levels for the average Canadian
household are moving down (perhaps we
've been taking those warnings from the Bank of Canada to heart), and as a result there's been «modest» growth in consumer spending, said Ferley.
Prices
had doubled in a short period,
households were piling on
debt and the market showed no signs of slowing down.
He included original research that suggests a looser fiscal policy after 2010 may
have resulted in a lower level of
household debt today.
«Canadian policy - makers
have allowed
household debt to rise above the disturbingly high levels reached in the U.S. in 2007, raising the risk of a similar potentially disastrous deleveraging down the road,» Madani wrote.
And as organizations such as the IMF and the OECD
have constantly warned, high
household debt renders the country far more vulnerable to economic shocks.
That's a drag on growth, but a welcome one if it means
households have begun doing something about record levels of
debt.
Households and individuals who are employed,
have decent incomes, own homes and
have done everything they feel they «should» be doing now find themselves facing serious, if not insurmountable,
debt problems.
So just how are mortgage delinquency rates so incredibly low at a time when
household debt levels relative to incomes
have never been higher?
The home equity line of credit
has allowed millions of
households to borrow against their properties, providing cash for everything from renovations to investing to
debt consolidation.
One of my constant points on this blog for the last several years
has been that
households» refinancing of their mortgage
debt at lower and lower rates
has put more money in their pockets for spending and for paying down
debt.
But low interest rates, at least in Canada,
have pushed
household debt to such vertiginous levels that officials like Carney know they shouldn't be counting on consumer spending to drive the recovery — ergo, the call for more corporate investment.
By borrowing: the country's
household debt to personal disposable income ratio
has climbed to a record high of 152.98 %, according to Statistics Canada.
If we came to learn that excessive
household debt posed a bigger threat to economic growth than does a certain level of government
debt, then policy makers
would want to take that into account when setting interest rates.
While $ 1.3 trillion won't do much to change the outlook for inflation or future
debt crises, it sure
would give a lot of
households one last chance to set things on a more positive course.
Even $ 10,000 to each
household would enable a lot of
debt to be paid off.
Cheap credit
has caused a host of problems: it
has blown out
household debt and inflated home prices in some markets to unsustainable levels.
But that pain today
would arguably be less severe than if rates go up years from now, when
households have piled on even more
debt.
Schembri conceded that ultra-low borrowing costs
have pushed
household debt to record levels, but expressed no worry about a U.S. - style housing crash.
«International research
has found that highly indebted
households cut back their spending to a greater degree in response to declining house prices than those with lower
debt levels,» he said in a letter to the House finance committee this month.
Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney
has warned that the biggest risk to the financial system is now
household debt, even if it's still «relatively low» and unlikely to reach levels that could cripple banks» balance sheets.
Among
households that
had credit card
debt at the end of 2016, the average owed is $ 16,748, according to a NerdWallet analysis.
In its latest statement, it said «
household vulnerabilities
have moved higher,» which is how policy makers describe the troubling nexus between excessive housing prices in many cities and record levels of
household debt.
Accordingly, total outstanding
household debt — like mortgages, home - equity loans, credit cards, auto loans, and student loans —
have progressively improved since the recession to $ 11.63 trillion.
Consumer purchases
have been slowing down in recent months as
households face higher costs for borrowing, stricter mortgage rules and large
debt loads.
Retail sales
have grown for 14 consecutive months and
household debt levels
have fallen.
They
've been building up their savings accounts and reducing their
household debt.
That's a reference to Canadian
households» heavy
debt burden, and lower borrowing costs only
would encourage more borrowing.
The Bank of Canada, for one,
has carefully assessed the economic risks of consumer
debt in order to determine how quickly it can raise interest rates without piling on too many
debt - servicing costs for over-stretched
households.