That old adage, ‘Retire without debt,’ may be going the way of the electric typewriter and rotary phone.
A new analysis from the personal finance site LendingTree finds that 97% of retirement-age adults have non-mortgage debt. The average balance: $11,349.
Credit card debt is the most common type among seniors, the analysis found, with 93% carrying a balance, followed by auto loans (37%), personal loans (19%) and, surprisingly, student loans (8%). The study draws from credit reports for seniors ages 66 to 71 in the 50 largest American cities.
The report comes at a time when retirement researchers are concerned about rising debt among seniors, a trend that inflation and high interest rates may have accelerated.
“What we found was that there are an awful lot of folks in retirement age who are carrying a fair amount of debt,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. “And when you’re on a fixed income, in a time of rising prices and sky-high interest rates, that’s a dicey proposition.”
Card debt may be more common among seniors, the report says, but auto debt is larger, accounting for one third of all debt. The average monthly car payment on a new vehicle now tops $700.
“Cars are so expensive now,” Schulz said. “And you can finance them for so long, at such a high rate, that it’s problematic for folks who are on a fixed income.”
The average retirement-age resident of San Antonio has about $18,107 in non-mortgage debt, according to a report from LendingTree.
Florida and Texas account for seven of the 10 cities with the most average debt among retirement-age seniors, the LendingTree study found. Here are the 10 metro areas where older Americans carry the most non-mortgage debt:
San Antonio ($18,107 average debt)
Jacksonville, Florida ($17,811)
Dallas ($16,985)
Houston ($16,101)
Orlando, Florida ($15,945)
Riverside, California ($15,727)
New Orleans ($15,108)
Austin, Texas ($15,046)
Miami ($14,397)
Memphis, Tennessee ($14,204)
The cities with the least senior debt: Salt Lake City ($6,717, on average), San Jose, California ($6,731), Portland, Oregon ($6,782), Milwaukee ($6,931) and St. Louis ($7,466).
The analysis examined the anonymized credit reports of 40,000 LendingTree users from 2024.
Financial Advisor Talking To Senior Couple At Home Signing Documents Sitting On Sofa Credit: monkeybusinessimages, Getty Images/iStockphoto GETTY ID#: GettyImages-177733410.jpg
Other recent reports suggest that a historically large share of retirees carry debt, especially credit card debt. Researchers see the trend as a sign of financial instability among older Americans.
“High interest-rate credit card debt is the most worrisome, because it can easily spiral out of control,” said Catherine Collinson, CEO of the nonprofit Transamerica Institute for Retirement Studies.
More than two-thirds of retirees with debt carry balances on their credit cards, according to the 2024 Spending in Retirement survey, released in November by the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute, or EBRI. The average credit card interest rate is 21.5%.
The EBRI analysis found retirees were more likely to have credit card debt than other kinds.
The share of older Americans with debt has risen over the decades. Among people 75 and older, 53% of households reported debt in the 2022 Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, up from 21% in 1989.
Younger Americans of the baby boom era came of age in the credit card era. Now, many have credit card debt.
In prior generations, common wisdom held that households should pay off their debt, including mortgage debt, before retirement.
That sensibility is changing. Younger baby boomers came of age in the credit card era. Many seniors refinanced homes during a period of low interest rates that ended in 2022, restarting the clock on 15- and 30-year mortgages.
“There’s definitely a trend of people carrying debt in older age, which is a departure from previous generations, when paying off debt was a rite of passage and prerequisite for retirement,” Collinson said.
In a 2024 report, Transamerica found that more than half of baby boomers stated “paying off debt” as a priority, especially credit card and mortgage debt.
Seniors are coping with credit card debt at a moment when retirees, along with the rest of America, face dual economic challenges of inflation and elevated interest rates.
Unlike younger Americans, however, retirees tend to live on fixed incomes. They generally cannot go out and find a higher-paying job to manage their debt.
“The aging services professionals we work with around the country tell us that medical and credit card debt are increasingly common among the older adults they serve,” said Ebony White, director of economic security and social safety net initiatives at the National Council on Aging. “Too often, debt forces older adults to make difficult and potentially harmful tradeoffs, such as skipping medications or meals.”
The nonprofit council offers a free online Budget Checkup to help older adults with their finances.
LendingTree and other sources offer these tips for older Americans struggling with debt:
A higher interest rate means you’re paying more interest every month on the money you borrowed. There’s a big difference, for example, between a 20% interest rate on a credit card balance and a 5% rate on a car loan.
If you have high-interest debt, see if you qualify for a zero-interest credit card, and consider using it to pay down your debt more quickly.
Retirement is a good time, financial advisers say, to look for cost savings in the household budget.
Do you still need that second car? Could you downsize to a smaller home? Does that summer trip have to be overseas? And what about all those streaming services?
Consider setting aside an entire day, and spend it cutting costs.
Collinson, at Transamerica, says she is surprised more retirement-age Americans aren’t actively planning for their retirement years. In one recent study, Transamerica found that fewer than two-thirds of retirees have an actual retirement plan.
“We’re not seeing people at retirement age engaging in financial planning at the level that they should be,” she said.
It’s never too late to meet with a financial planner, experts say, whether you are preparing for retirement or already living it.
