Headline consumer credit contracted in January and was extremely below expectations. Our analysis of the unadjusted data shows annual growth is now in contraction year-over-year. Analyst Opinion of the Consumer Credit Situation Student loan year-over-year growth rate declined and remains in an overall slowing trend. Not only does this data set suffer from backward revision (at times moderate to significant enough to change trends -, but the use of compounding (projecting monthly change as annual change) by the Federal Reserve to determine consumer credit growth rates exaggerates the volatility in this data. that the amount of consumer credit outstanding relative to consumer expenditures is at 21st-century highs.