American Households are Piling Up Debt At Historic Levels - Moby THE GIST At the end of 2025, U.S. households ran up more debt than they had ever before — about $19 trillion in the fourth quarter alone. This includes a miscellany of credit card debt, mortgage, student loans, auto loans and lines of credit. To put that number in perspective — that’s up roughly$191 billion from Q3. WHAT HAPPENED The Federal Reserve Bank of New York released its quarterly household debt and credit report, and the numbers ...