[August 13, 2013], “the New York Fed released its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit for the second quarter of 2013. It shows a $78 billion decline in overall household debt from the previous period. Delinquency rates improved considerably, with the overall ninety-plus day delinquency rate falling to 5.7 percent, the lowest it has been since mid-2008. The Quarterly Report is based on data from the New York Fed’s Consumer Credit Panel, a nationally representative sample drawn from anonymized Equifax credit data.  This quarter, we provide some additional analysis on auto loans, whose balances have increased as the economy has recovered. Bureau of Economic Analysis data indicate that light motor vehicle sales, which fell sharply during the Great Recession to levels that hadn’t been seen since the early 1980s, made a V-shape recovery. Data released in today’s Quarterly Report show newly originated auto loan balances, used to finance both new and used motor vehicle purchases, also declined during the recession, and have just recovered to 2008 levels, driven in part by historically low interest rates. Data from the FRBNY Consumer Credit Panel enables us to further analyze who is getting these new auto loans.”