It might be extremely dry in some parts of the U.S. this summer but when it comes to revolving debt it is anything but a drought. American consumers piled on another $5 billion to revolving debt during June according to figures released last week by the Federal Reserve. Overall consumer credit throttled down a bit to a 2.5% annual growth rate from 10.5% in May. Since last June, American consumers have added more than $31 billion to revolving debt, according to the FRB. Revolving credit is mostly credit card debt. Total bank credit card debt stands at $460 billion while store/retail credit card debt stands at $93 billion according to CardData (www.carddata.com). Therefore the FRB's $576 billion in revolving debt for June includes $553 billion in credit card debt and $23 billion in revolving lines of credit attached to checking accounts.  At the end of June, American consumers were $1.347 trillion in debt, exclusive of home mortgages.        

REVOLVING CREDIT HISTORICAL
	Jun99	May99	Apr99	Mar99	Feb99	Jan99	Dec98	Nov98	Oct98	Sep98
%GROWTH	8.6%	4.2	5.6	0.9	3.4	11.6	8.6	2.4	13.0	7.5
$OWED	$576.0	571.9	569.9	567.3	567.5	565.9	560.5	556.5	557.6	551.7

 
                                        Source Federal Reserve; revised figures as of 08/06/99;
  For complete historical data visit www.carddata.com.