Increasing debt is the not only a problem for the federal government; it's also a growing burden for U.S. consumers.

According to the New York Fed's latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, household debt rose in 2017 for the fifth consecutive year. In the fourth quarter of 2017, household debt grew 1.5% from the third quarter to $13.15 trillion. That's equivalent to 68% of U.S. GDP.

Debt increased in all major categories: in mortgages (1.6%), student loans (up 1.5%), auto loans (up 0.7%) and credit cards (up 3.2%), but fell 0.9% for home equity loans.

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Bernice Napach

Bernice Napach is a senior writer at ThinkAdvisor covering financial markets and asset managers, robo-advisors, college planning and retirement issues. She has worked at Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg TV, CNBC, Reuters, Investor's Business Daily and The Bond Buyer and has written articles for The New York Times, TheStreet.com, The Star-Ledger, The Record, Variety and Worth magazine. Bernice has a Bachelor of Science in Social Welfare from SUNY at Stony Brook.

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