Americans increased their borrowing for the 23rd straight quarter to a total of $14.3 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the latest snapshot of household balance sheets entering what many experts believe to be a recession, Bloomberg News reported. Total U.S. household debt rose by $155 billion in the first quarter from the previous three-month period, or 1.1 percent, the New York Fed’s quarterly report showed. Overall household debt is now 28.2 percent above the second-quarter 2013 trough. The steady increase in consumer borrowing has continuously set new records with every passing quarter, but still remains shy of the inflation-adjusted $15 trillion that Americans owed in 2007, New York Fed data show. Mortgage borrowing rose by $156 billion to $9.71 trillion. More than 80 percent of mortgage originations were among borrowers with a credit score of at least 720, the highest percentage in seven years. The median Equifax Risk Score — in which lower scores indicate that a consumer could become seriously delinquent — rose to 773.
