Americans are starting to pull back from a pandemic-era credit-card binge.
After a surge in credit-card spending that pushed Americans’ card balances above $1 trillion, growth is now moderating. Credit-card spending has been growing more slowly than debit-card spending since late last year, the first such stretch in nearly four years, according to the latest spending data from Visa and Mastercard.
Credit-card originations had soared during the recent period of high inflation. That allowed Americans to keep spending on discretionary items even after money ran out from pandemic stimulus payments.