Saving rate 4.1%, the lowest since November 2022; stocks are 48.2% of household and nonprofit financial assets, a record high (data since 1945)

Q1 Are households spending more than they earn?

Adjusted for inflation, consumer spending is +2.6% from a year earlier and disposable income +1.3%. Spending grew faster than income in 11 of the last 12 months. The saving rate, the share of after-tax income not spent, is 4.1%, the lowest since November 2022; it was 5.2% a year earlier and 6.2% two years earlier. Households as a whole still saved $990 billion at an annual rate. The rate is an aggregate: it shows households together saving a smaller share of income, and cannot show whether individual households are drawing down savings, borrowing or selling investments.

Q2 Are they borrowing more?

Revolving consumer credit, mostly credit cards, stood at $1.35 trillion in August 2026, +3.4% from a year earlier (a year before that, −2.4%). Total consumer credit, including auto and student loans, is $5.20 trillion, +2.7% over 12 months. Measured against income, revolving credit equals 5.58% of a year’s disposable income, the lowest since December 2021, against 5.66% a year earlier and a peak of 9.48% in April 2008. Balances are month-end amounts and include card balances paid in full each month, not only debt carried from month to month.

Q3 Are they falling behind on payments?

At commercial banks, 2.85% of credit card balances were delinquent in Q2 2026, the lowest since Q2 2023, against 2.91% the quarter before and 3.04% a year earlier. The rate reached 3.22% in Q2 2024. Since 1991 it has ranged from 1.53% (Q3 2021) to 6.77% (Q2 2009).

Q4 How much of their income goes to debt payments?

In Q2 2026, required payments on household debt took 11.11% of disposable income: mortgages 5.83% and consumer debt 5.28%. A year earlier the total was 11.12%; before COVID (Q4 2019) 11.73%; at its peak in Q4 2007, 15.85%. Of the 86 quarters since Q1 2005, this ranks 68th from the top.

The Federal Reserve changed how it measures this in 2024: the current series uses credit-bureau payment records and starts in 2005, and counts property tax and insurance paid through mortgage escrow. The previous series, archived and no longer updated, runs from 1980 to Q1 2024. It sits lower (it left escrow out), so the two lines are shown separately and should not be read as one. On the previous measure, 1980 to 2004 ranged from 10.25% to 12.68%, peaked at 13.29% in Q4 2007 and ended at 9.78%.

Q5 How much of their wealth is in stocks, and how much is borrowed?

Stocks, held directly or through mutual funds, retirement accounts and pensions, were 48.2% of the financial assets of U.S. households and nonprofit organizations combined in Q2 2026, a record high (data since 1945). At the 2000 peak the share was 38.7% (Q1 2000); in 2021–22 it reached 41.0% (Q4 2021). This is an aggregate share, not the typical household’s portfolio, and it rises when stock prices rise even without new buying.

The market value of U.S. nonfinancial corporate stock, $83.1 trillion, equals 255% of GDP, a record high (data since 1947), against 163% at the 2000 peak (Q1 2000) and 219% in Q4 2021. This Federal Reserve measure includes privately held companies at estimated market value, so it runs higher than ratios built on listed stocks alone, and it sets the value of companies that also earn abroad against domestic output.

Margin debt, the money investors borrow from brokers against their securities, was $1.45 trillion in August 2026, +37.2% from a year earlier (a year before that, +32.9%). The record is $1.50 trillion in June 2026. Over the past 12 months growth peaked at +53.7% in May 2026, the fastest since May 2021. In the 12 months to June 2026, margin debt grew +49.0% while the value of stocks households hold grew +25.9%. Investors also held $0.43 trillion in free cash at their brokers. FINRA counts every customer margin account at member firms, institutions included, so this is not households alone, and it leaves out leverage taken through options and swaps.