According to CFPB: After delinquent credit cards fell during the pandemic, the share of consumers with delinquent credit cards has increased rapidly since 2021 and is now higher than in 2019. While consumers with delinquencies clearly show signs of struggling, news reports have taken the rising delinquency rate as a sign that financial distress is becoming more widespread, suggesting underlying weakness in the U.S. economy. We show that rather than being a sign of broader distress, this increase in delinquencies is explained by a substantial increase in the riskiness of recently issued credit cards.