Credit card use is on the decline, as millions of Americans cut up their plastic or get cut off by their .
In the past year, more than eight million consumers have stopped using , according to TransUnion, a Chicago-based credit researcher. That means 78 million U.S. consumers do not have credit cards, compared to 70 million last year.
The company said the decline is partly due to "charge-offs in the higher risk segments" and partly because of "more conservative spending in the low-risk segments."
Gerri Detweiler of Credit.com said it is "unprecedented" for consumers to "abandon" their credit cards. "I've been covering this since 1987 and I don't recall numbers like that ever going down," she said. "They've always gone up."
Detweiler said the recession is a major factor. "When people are confident about their financial situation and the economy, they feel more confident about using credit," she said. "When they're scared or nervous about their own economic situation, or the economy in general, then they're more likely to buckle down and avoid debt altogether."
