Are US families falling behind on their loan payments?

More of them, yes. The Federal Reserve's 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances found that 19.6% of US families were late on a loan payment in the year before the survey, against 12.2% in 2022.

The lower-income families are furthest behind. Among families with debt, the share two months or more late on any payment:

• Bottom fifth of incomes: 25.3%, the highest since the survey began in 1989. The previous high was 21.1% in 2010.
• Second fifth: 15.2%, level with 2010.
• All families with debt: 10.7%, against 6.3% in 2022 and 10.8% in 2010.

These are survey estimates, so a gap of a point or two can be sampling error. Student loans are part of the rise: payments were paused from 2020 to 2023 and have since restarted.

What has moved against these families since.

• Mortgage rates: the 30-year fixed rate was 7.40% in the week of 8 October 2026, up from 6.15% at the end of 2025. That is above every week of 2007 and 2008, when the high was 6.74%, and below the 7.79% of October 2023. Most mortgages are fixed, so this reaches new borrowers first.
• The Fed raised rates in September 2026.
• Energy prices were up about 16% on a year in August 2026, and hourly pay has grown more slowly than prices since April.

The lenders' data is under pressure and has not broken. The analysis finds credit union losses well above 2019, bank card losses close to 2019 and new 90-day late mortgages still rising. Hiring and layoffs are both low, so jobs will decide what comes next. The September-quarter lender data arrives in November and December 2026.

Related: are US consumer credit delinquencies at crisis levels?, how strong the US consumer is and is US unemployment worse than the headline?

Sources: the Fed's Survey of Consumer Finances, including Changes in US Family Finances from 2022 to 2025 and its historical tables (table 18). Market and lender series are on TREMOR. Full analysis with the deck: https://www.tigzig.com/post/us-consumer-pressure-late-payments-oct2026.