There is a disturbing trend of increases in household debt which has been underway for some time. This trend indicates that average debt per household, in constant dollars, has nearly doubled in the time period from 1990 to 2003 (despite occuring concurrently with a period of significant economic growth). This pattern is not really all that recent, and extends as far back as 1940, both in the United States and in other developed economies.

In practice, when people borrow on credit cards, they are essentially betting that in the future, they will have more money (or if not, more discipline) than they currently have. The bet is thus that they will more likely be able to pay off the debt in the future than they are in the present. Such a bet may be reasonable when the magnitude of the debt is managable, but when the debt begins to exceed an 'ability to pay' (represented across households in the Federal Reserve System’s "debt service ratio"), that situation can have both personal and national impacts.

The trend that is occurring seems to be related to several factors, including: