NPR.

This is the indicator for planet money. I'm Adrian Ma.

I'm Wayland Wong and today we have Sarah Gonzalez a planet money here for indicators of the week.

Yes, I just got back from the dentist so you have slurry, slightly slurry Sarah here with you.

I thought you would be taking the rest of the day off drinking a milkshake.

I can't drink anything right now. It squirts out.

Wow, that's very detailed.

You're just going to hear me slushin' around over here.

I think it's going to be great. We have three indicators that are actually not dental related.

They're about household debt, which is up, home depot sales, which are headed down, and tick-tock, which is maybe headed out of Montana.

That's coming up after the break.

Alright, Adrian, you're up first.

The indicator comes from the New York Federal Reserve's latest report on household debt.

What it shows is that the total amount of debt held by American households is just over $17 trillion.

So that is my indicator for this week, $17 trillion. That is a record.

And just to help you get your head around that number, that averages out to about $51,000 of debt per person.

Yep, that sounds about right.

And just to flesh this out a little bit, 73% of that debt figure is housing debt, so mortgages, which a lot of people think of as good debt, right?

Because you're buying an asset that could appreciate and value.

The rest of that debt, about 27% is things like credit card, student loans, car loans.

And when you lump all this stuff together, American households have about 20% more debt than they did pre-pandemic.

Like a significant dental bill that you might put on your credit card.

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