U.S. consumer spending has been slowed down due to economic factors such as oil prices. The housing market has also hit a slump, even to the point of home values falling, according to Rick Wolff, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
"People borrowed to buy or expand a home," Wolff explained. "The boom in building and improving homes generated a huge portion of the rising consumer spending that kept the U.S. economy afloat. This cycle of borrowing-building, and borrowing and building more, produced a historic run-up in home prices alongside a historic rise in consumer debt.