Jessica Mendoza

Melissa Megason lives in South Portland, Maine, where she's worked as a medical assistant for most of her career.

For a long time, Melissa and her then-husband felt like they had a pretty good handle on their finances.

But then Melissa's life took a turn, and she found herself pulling out her credit cards more and more often.

The debt started piling up.

At its peak, what was the number that you were looking at in terms of what you owed to credit card companies?

Melissa makes about $65,000 a year.

So her credit card debt was almost a third of her income.

And how did you feel or what were you thinking when you saw that amount, when it really sort of dawned on you?

Melissa found herself in a hole, one that more and more Americans are falling into.

Our colleague Dan Frosch writes about the economy, and he says that record number means Americans have $70 billion more in credit card debt than they did at the same time last year.

As the debt rises, more and more people are delinquent, which means making their payments late or not at all.

And what story is that?

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Jessica Mendoza.

It's Friday, June 5th.

Coming up on the show, why Americans are racking up more credit card debt than ever.

The average American carries about $6,500 in credit card debt.

And the number of people with significant debt is going up.

As of last year, about 20% of cardholders had a balance of over $10,000.

Dan, what do we know about what's driving this increase in credit card debt?