About one in four Americans with credit records are behind on debt

Nearly one in four Americans with a credit record are behind on medical bills, student debt, auto loans or retail loans, according to a new Urban Institute analysis reported by CBS News.

The analysis put the share at roughly 24%, up from less than 23% in 2025. The median balance in collection was $2,913. It drew on more than 10 million credit records and U.S. Census data, a large enough sample to make the number hard to wave away as a bad month.

Why it matters: Credit card balances have reached a record $1.29 trillion, nearly 70% higher than five years ago, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York figures cited by CBS. Ted Rossman, a consumer finance analyst at Money Management International, said years of high prices have depleted savings and pushed households to use debt for daily expenses. He put the average increase in consumer prices since 2019 at 30%.

That combination leaves less room for a car repair, a medical bill or an interest-rate increase. Breno Braga, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, told CBS that rising living costs make basic payments harder and higher interest rates make it tougher to catch up once someone falls behind.

The uneven burden: In communities of color, 30% of people are behind on payments, with a median debt in collection of $3,009, according to the Urban Institute. Almost 16% of student-loan borrowers are behind on payments. Louisiana had the highest share of people with debt in collections, and roughly 22% of its student-loan borrowers were behind.

Braga linked geographic differences partly to lower incomes, higher poverty rates, lower credit scores and higher borrowing costs. A person with a weaker credit score does not merely have less room in the budget. They often pay more for the debt that is supposed to get them through the month.

Medical bills are their own problem: About 3% of Americans have medical debt in collections, with a median balance of $1,492. That figure covers unpaid hospital and other medical bills, but not health care costs placed on a credit card. Braga said insurance does not necessarily prevent medical debt, particularly for people with high-deductible plans.

Fifteen states have passed laws blocking health care providers from reporting medical debt to credit-rating agencies. The debt can still exist even when it no longer follows someone around on a credit report. The number to watch next is whether the share in collections keeps rising after its one-point increase this year.