Americans cut credit card debt by nearly $ 83 billion during the pandemic

Although 2020 was a year that most people would like to forget, many Americans have managed to significantly reduce credit card debt.

According to a study released on Monday by WalletHub, a personal finance website, Americans collectively got rid of a record $ 82.9 billion in credit card debt.

A stack of multicolored credit cards. (iStock)

The number is significant, as consumers have added an average of $ 54.2 billion in credit card debt each year for the past decade.

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Still, the United States still has a long way to go to pay the nearly $ 1 trillion that Americans collectively owe credit card companies – although the prospect of reducing debt to zero is highly unlikely to happen.

The outlet projects that the average household balance and the country’s credit card debt will increase as the economy begins to reopen amid the reduction in COVID cases.

The WalletHub report, citing data from TransUnion and the Federal Reserve, showed that Oxnard, California, paid off most of the debt ($ 65.3 million), and Burlington, Vermont, added the largest ($ 49.9 million).

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WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez told CNBC that 2020 was the second year in more than 30 years “we ended the year with less credit card debt than we started”. The first year was in 2009, at the height of the Great Recession.