# 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?](https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/are-us-consumer-credit-delinquencies-at-crisis-levels), [how strong the US consumer is](https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/is-the-us-consumer-actually-strong) and [is US unemployment worse than the headline?](https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/is-us-unemployment-worse-than-headline)

Sources: the Fed's [Survey of Consumer Finances](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm), including [Changes in US Family Finances from 2022 to 2025](https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/scf26.pdf) and its historical tables (table 18). Market and lender series are on [TREMOR](https://www.tigzig.com/tremor). Full analysis with the deck: [https://www.tigzig.com/post/us-consumer-pressure-late-payments-oct2026](https://www.tigzig.com/post/us-consumer-pressure-late-payments-oct2026).

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Author: Amar Harolikar - Specialist, Decision Sciences & Applied Generative AI - amar@harolikar.com - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amarharolikar
Source: https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/are-us-families-falling-behind-on-loan-payments
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