Money and Finance

FRBSF Economic Letter: U.S. Household Deleveraging and Future Consumption Growth

Thanks to Matt and Mike for passing this along.

It seems the deleveraging process may take longer and be more painful than most people think (and certainly longer and more painful than much of the media portrays…..surprise, surprise).

U.S. household leverage, as measured by the ratio of debt to personal disposable income, increased modestly from 55% in 1960 to 65% by the mid-1980s. Then, over the next two decades, leverage proceeded to more than double, reaching an all-time high of 133% in 2007. That dramatic rise in debt was accompanied by a steady decline in the personal saving rate. The combination of higher debt and lower saving enabled personal consumption expenditures to grow faster than disposable income, providing a significant boost to U.S. economic growth over the period.

In the long-run, however, consumption cannot grow faster than income because there is an upper limit to how much debt households can service, based on their incomes. For many U.S. households, current debt levels appear too high, as evidenced by the sharp rise in delinquencies and foreclosures in recent years. To achieve a sustainable level of debt relative to income, households may need to undergo a prolonged period of deleveraging, whereby debt is reduced and saving is increased. This Economic Letter discusses how a deleveraging of the U.S. household sector might affect the growth rate of consumption going forward.

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