Consumer debt still piling up...and up

The Federal Reserve issued its G.19 release a week or so ago, detailing the state of consumer debt in the U.S.:

G.19 CONSUMER CREDIT For release at 3 p.m. (Eastern Time)
February 2007 April 6, 2007

Consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 1-1/2 percent in February. Revolving credit rose at an annual rate of 3-1/2 percent, and nonrevolving credit rose at an annual rate of 1/2 percent.

The 2002 through Feb of 2007 stats on outstanding consumer credit, Seasonally adjusted, in billions of dollars:

2002----------------1,984.1
2003----------------2,087.8
2004----------------2,201.8
2005----------------2,295.0
2006----------------2,400.1
2007 (Feb)----------2,409.7

In other words, consumer debt outstanding increased more than 20% from 2002 through Feb. of 2007, a bit over 4 years. That's a rate of increase that puts the real earnings numbers in the prior post to shame...unfortunately.