My bet is that some of the biggest categories for personal credit card spending are related to travel and bars/clubs, including the specialized clothing and accessories that surround those activities. Folks may have paid some debt off, but not many were spending for these big activities at all. I imagine there’s a lot of cross-over with demographics that tend to carry more debt or be more impulsive to begin with.

Edit: ...also dining out

Personal anecdote; we didn’t have to pay for after school care or kids summer activities for many months now, allowing us to pay down credit cards.

Since interest rates bottomed out, my credit union has been sending twice-a-week promos for $8-$10k personal loans to consolidate and pay off credit card debt. The rates are typically 7-10%, cheap compared to a lot of bad-credit-allowed card issuers, and I've seen some lenders go as far down as 6% on up to $100k over 2-3 year repayment periods.

The loans are probably considered low risk between the combo of stimulus checks, tax refunds (July 15 was the filing deadline so rebate checks are hitting now or soon), juiced-up unemployment benefits, and rent forgiveness/deferral all hitting at once.

So I'd be curious to see if there's any correlation between credit card debt and "personal" (non-mortgage, non-auto) loan balances. It could just be refinancing via consolidation.

Reduced cost of living. Lots of my neighbors have relatives that have moved-in recently. Houses are becoming more multi-generational/multifamily.

> Lots of my neighbors have relatives that have moved-in recently.

I haven't noticed this with my neighbors (I'm not sure I would), but amongst my friends and myself I can definitely second this.

It does make me wonder about this line

> The real estate market has been red hot after an initial slowdown during quarantine: (Median house prices)

Maybe it's the case that predominantly rich people are buying/selling right now?

From my personal contacts, it seems that those who can afford it are now moving out of the cities or acquiring rural "vacation" homes. The people I know who are buying are all upper managers or higher in salary.

Our Southern California beach city has seen 60% increase in home sales over last year and the median price is on more higher priced homes than is typical. These are almost all single family homes with space. If you have to work from home, it is nice to have an extra bedroom or dedicated office.

Or families are expanding as relatives are moving in?

Hmm, maybe, several apartments merging to one house could explain it.

If so that bodes ill for apartment-building-owners.

All sorts of things. No vacations, no evictions, cut credit limits, limited retail, no commutes, etc.

In my neck of the woods, real estate is insane and people are refinancing. Lenders are writing 90% LTV loans at 2.7%

My credit cards had been on auto-pay some small amount for a few months. I'm lazy and never logged in and paid the balances. But I had the cash in the bank. So when the crisis hit I paid them off because of the unknowable future.