Nearly one-third of Americans 30 and older have more credit-card debt than retirement savings, according to a recent survey from Schroders. That seems alarming enough, but a breakdown by age that Schroders provided Barron's Advisor shows that 22% of respondents who are 70 or older said their credit-card debt exceeds their savings; 28% of respondents between the ages of 60 and 69 said the same.
Jeff Judge, managing partner at Chesapeake Financial Planners, says those statistics don't surprise him. "I see some version of it in my office more often than people would guess."
It isn't only a problem of the middle or lower classes, says Joseph Stabile, founder of Coast Financial. "Some of my highest earning clients have come to me carrying significant credit-card balances," he says. "High income doesn't always mean high financial organization."
Americans more broadly are carrying growing amounts of credit card debt. In the second quarter, Americans carried $1.26 trillion in credit-card debt, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That's up $21 billion from the first quarter and $54 billion from the second quarter in 2025.
LendingTree has compiled a historical look at credit-card debt since the Fed began tracking the issue in 1999. There are some notable periods of decline from 2008 through 2012 and again at the onset of the Covid pandemic in 2020, but the upward trend is unmistakable.
In the first quarter of 1999, credit-card debt was $478 billion, which means that in a little over 26 years, the figure has increased 164%. Over the same period, inflation has increased about 100%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Dan O'Rourke, an advisor with Strathmore Capital Advisors, says the problem echoes the country's growing reliance on debt spending and Americans' low savings rates. "While they're driven by different forces, they all point to a broader cultural challenge -- delayed gratification has become harder," he says. "Immediate consumption is easy. Saving for something 20 or 30 years away is much more difficult."
How to fix it. Credit-card debt can come from many causes, but a common scenario involves a massive disruption, such as the loss of a job or a major healthcare expense. In other cases, credit-card debt can pile up due to a cash-flow imbalance or simply from reckless spending. For advisors, it is important to identify the root of the issue before devising a plan to correct it.
"Diagnose before prescribing," says Marcel Miu, founder of Simplify Wealth Planning. "Debt from a one-time shock, a monthly shortfall, and emotional spending look identical on a statement and respond to completely different approaches."
For clients who are still working, Miu's first suggestion is to ensure that they are contributing to their workplace retirement plan at the level required to secure the maximum employee match. Because the company match is often 50%, those contributions should help keep savings above a credit card's annual percentage rate.
When clients are ready to start paying down their credit cards, advisors should remind them to start with the account with the highest interest rate. They can also help clients navigate the pros and cons of borrowing against a retirement plan (which 27% of respondents to the Schroders survey said they have done). Clients under age 59 1/2 need to determine whether the early-withdrawal penalties are worth the debt-reduction offset.
Investment risk. Advisors counsel clients struggling with credit-card debt to focus on paying down those balances before turning to investments, noting that it is hard to find consistent market returns that outpace credit-card APRs.
Too often, older Americans in a debt hole will try to invest their way out of it, looking to speculative investments or excessive trading strategies.
"For older investors with more credit-card debt than retirement savings, the focus should generally be on improving cash flow and reducing financial risk rather than trying to catch up through aggressive investing," says Brett Hina, managing partner at Cornerstone Private Wealth.
Basic cash-flow analysis with a consideration of ways to increase income or reduce spending -- or both -- can solve the problem.
For retirees who might not have many options for boosting their income and are already trimming expenses, it might be time to discuss big-picture changes, such as downsizing their home, says Justin Pandy, a financial planner with Lakewood Wealth Management. "If guaranteed income doesn't cover fixed expenses, the debt comes back within a year no matter how efficiently you pay it off," he says.
Debt-relief options exist. Advisors might point clients to card companies' hardship programs, which can cut APRs to single digits, and groups such as the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, which works to keep creditors at bay and helps individuals with debt-management strategies.
Generational Change. Pandy believes that older Americans started saving for retirement with a disadvantage -- those 70 and older likely began working before 401(k)s and Roth IRAs, when defined-benefit pensions were far more prevalent.
"They spent the early part of their career in a system that didn't ask them to save, and then the rules changed -- bye-bye pension," he says, noting that younger generations might have an easier time absorbing some of the fundamentals of personal finance.
"Whatever you think of financial social media finfluencers -- and there's plenty to criticize -- a 25-year-old today has heard 'don't carry a balance' a thousand times before they open their first card," he says. "A 70-year-old may never have heard it once."
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