Sens. Hawley and Sanders Introduce Bill to Cap Credit Card Interest Rates

Earlier this week, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced a bill that would cap credit card interest rates  at 10 percent, the average of which is currently 20 percent. This bill comes after President Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 to temporarily cap credit card interest rates at 10 percent.

“When large financial institutions charge over 25 percent interest on credit cards, they are not engaged in the business of making credit available,” Sanders said in a statement, according to USA Today. “They are engaged in extortion and loan sharking. We cannot continue to allow big banks to make huge profits ripping off the American people.”

Though Hawley’s political ideology is different from Sanders’ at the core, he shared the same sentiment. “Working Americans are drowning in record credit card debt while the biggest credit card issuers get richer and richer by hiking their interest rates to the moon,” he said in a press release, according to PaymentsDive.

Both Sanders and Hawley referenced a Forbes report that found that the average U.S. credit card interest rate is 28.6 percent, even though banks draw on the Federal Reserve (Fed) at rates of less than 4.5 percent. Sanders also emphasized that Americans are burdened by a record-breaking $1.17 trillion in credit card debt.

A press release noted that the legislation would be in effect for five years, though it will likely face criticism from industry lobbyists. In September, the American Financial Services Association argued that rate caps are “unworkable” and “actually harm the consumers policymakers are trying to help by limiting the types of credit” that Americans rely on.

Additionally, the American Bankers Association scrutinized the proposal, arguing that it “would result in the loss of credit access for the very consumers who need it the most.”