NBC reports that the cost of credit card debt is now the highest it's been in over 30 years, with average interest rates up to 19.04%.<br />"Bankrate has been surveying credit card rates since 1985, and this eclipses the previous all-time high of 19.00% from July 1991." Greg McBride, Bankrate chief financial analyst, via NBC.<br />The new all-time high comes as the Federal Reserve has made its largest key federal funds rate hike <br />in over a decade in an effort to combat inflation.<br />NBC reports that the Fed's plan is to raise the cost of borrowing in hopes that it will slow the economy and ease rising prices.<br />This has ratcheted the prime rate up to 7%, which is what banks charge the most creditworthy customers.<br />The prime rate is also used to determine the final annual percentage rate for a credit card.<br />According to Bankrate, someone paying the minimum payment on a $5,000 credit card debt would pay over $6,000 in interest over 15 years.<br />"You don’t feel it on a monthly basis, but minimum payments are a trap. If you as an individual have credit card debt with an interest rate near 20%, that needs to be priority — it's three, four, five times <br />higher than other forms of debt."Ted Rossman, Bankrate Senior Industry Analyst, via NBC
