NY Fed news release: “In its Q4 2014 Household Debt and Credit Report, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced that outstanding household debt increased $117 billion from the third quarter. The one percent increase puts total household indebtedness at $11.83 trillion as of December 31, 2014. Total debt has gone up $326 billion since the fourth quarter of 2013. The report is based on data from the New York Fed’s Consumer Credit Panel, a nationally representative sample drawn from anonymized Equifax credit data.  Balances were largely up across the board, led by mortgages ($39 billion) and student loans ($31 billion). Auto loan debt and credit card debt increased by $21 billion and $20 billion, respectively. Outstanding student loan balances now stand at $1.16 trillion. While overall delinquency rates were unchanged at 4.3 percent in the fourth quarter, delinquency rates for auto loans and student loans worsened. Our Liberty Street Economics blog post provides a further discussion of the delinquency picture.  “Although we’ve seen an overall improvement in delinquency rates since the Great Recession, the increasing trend in student loan balances and delinquencies is concerning,” said Donghoon Lee, research officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “Student loan delinquencies and repayment problems appear to be reducing borrowers’ ability to form their own households.”