Big credit card bills are supposed to show up after the holiday shopping season. This year, Christmas came early.

Just one week after affordability took center stage in the midterm elections, fresh data shows Americans are heading into the holiday shopping season saddled with record credit card balances.

Americans’ total credit card debt hit $1.29 trillion in the three months that ended in September — a rise of $22 billion over that period, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s latest quarterly report on household debt and credit. That’s 67% higher compared with the first quarter of 2021, when pandemic restrictions limited spending on things like travel and dining out.

“The consumer is in a fragile state,” Steve Cahillane, the CEO of Kraft Heinz, said on the company’s quarterly earnings call this month. He said the company, which makes everything from ketchup to cream cheese, plans to hold off on significant price increases “in order to meet the consumers where they are.”

Total household debt, which includes mortgages, student and auto loans, credit cards, home equity lines of credit and other borrowing, rose by $334 billion in the third quarter to $19.1 trillion. That’s $5 trillion more than at the end of 2019, just before the pandemic-driven recession.

“Last week, voters expressed their anger at the high cost of living. With prices up an average of 30% since 2019, millions of Americans have depleted their savings and taken on debt to make ends meet,” said Ted Rossman, principal consumer finance analyst at Money Management International, a nonprofit credit counseling agency.

Federal data also shows savings rates have dipped below 4% of total income, well below pre-pandemic levels, revealing a fraying financial safety cushion.