There is good news about Americans and their debt in a quarterly report issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Consumer Credit Panel; keeping in mind, of course, that everything is relative. For example, aggregate consumer debt and household delinquency rates, while still in abysmal territory, both declined during the second quarter of 2010. The report uses detailed Equifax credit report data to construct a longitudinal quarterly panel of individuals and households covering the period 1999 to 2009. The panel is a nationally representative 5 percent sample of individuals with social security numbers and an Equifax credit history. The survey includes all individuals sharing the panel members' address, allowing the survey designers to construct household-level debt for a representative…(read more)