4½ Months’ Worth of Groceries
New data was just reported by The Nilson Report payments industry analyst showing that U.S. businesses paid $198 billion in swipe fees last year, up from $187 billion in 2024. $119 billion of those fees were Visa/Mastercard credit card fees. These fees are up 80% since the pandemic.
Another payments industry analyst, CMSPI, calculated that merchants paid an even higher total, $236 billion, in swipe fees in 2024.
- There are two different calculations on how much swipe fees cost the average family — either $1,200 per year (based on numbers from the Nilson Report) or $1,800 per year (based on numbers from CMSPI).
- At the higher figure, that is 2.5% of the average union worker’s annual salary going to swipe fees!
- At the higher figure, that is 2.5% of the average union worker’s annual salary going to swipe fees!
- Look at it from another angle — that is nearly four-and-a-half months’ worth of groceries for the average family. Should workers be spending more than a third of their annual grocery budget on the credit card industry’s swipe fees? How does it compare with other costs?
- About three months of Social Security contributions
- More than a year of the average American’s clothing budget
- More than four months of health care costs
This is simply out of whack.
Credit card swipe fees in the U.S. are the highest in the industrialized world. There is no way they should be cutting so deeply into Americans’ wallets.
COMPETITION IS BETTER FOR EVERYONE
IT'S TIME TO PASS THE CREDIT CARD COMPETITION ACT