According to a survey released Thursday by Bankrate, a financial analytics firm, 37 percent of American credit card holders have maxed out or nearly maxed out on their card limits since the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates in March 2022. 

"That's probably higher than you would expect to see in an economy that has low and stable inflation," Bankrate analyst Sarah Foster told The Epoch Times.

"I think this is just a sign that consumers are feeling some distress, and the nationwide aggregate numbers just might be masking what's underneath the hood."

According to the survey, more than half of the respondents who had gone deep into credit card debt blamed inflation, which has reduced the value of the U.S. dollar by more than 20 percent since 2021 and left many Americans struggling to afford basic necessities. The second reason, cited by 38 percent of respondents, was unexpected emergency expenses.

Aggregate U.S. labor data are generally positive. Unemployment, while edging up slightly over the past year, remains low at 4.1 percent as of September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Wage growth, while down from 2023, is 4.7 percent as of September, according to Fed statistics. 

But national averages don't always capture the plight of those who are struggling. 

According to the Q4 2023 Quarterly Credit Industry Insights Report (CIIR) released in February by TransUnion, a credit-rating company, Americans' credit card debt exceeded $1 trillion for the first time on record, and grew by 13 percent over the prior growth year.

And by contrast to more affluent Americans, who can draw on options like home equity for cash, those who must resort to credit cards will typically pay interest rates of almost 25 percent, according the LendingTree, a consumer finance company. Those high interest rates add to monthly card payments, making it even more difficult for those who have gone deeply into debt to climb back out of it.