Americans are having a harder time making interest payments as savings are shrinking and a barrage of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve has jacked up the cost of financing.

 

Delinquency rates on credit cards, mortgages and auto payments have all been ticking up as the level of household savings, which swelled under stimulus payments handed out during the pandemic, have been declining.

 

Sixty-day car payment delinquencies for people with bad credit hit an all-time record of 6.1 percent in September, up from 5.8 percent in August, according to data from Fitch Ratings. That’s the highest level of lateness since the company first started tallying rates in 1994.

 

Ninety-day delinquency on credit cards has increased to 5.1 percent, up from 3.4 percent in the second quarter of last year, Federal Reserve data shows.

 

“The steady increase in delinquencies for three consecutive quarters signals stress on consumer ability to repay balances on general-purpose credit cards,” Herman Poon, a senior director at Fitch, wrote in a July analysis of consumer behavior.