Hawaii consumers got a little better paying their credit card bills on time, resulting in fewer delinquencies in the second quarter.

The 90-day delinquency rate fell slightly to 0.97 percent in the April-June quarter, according to a recent report by credit agency TransUnion. That’s down from 1.08 percent in the year-earlier period and 1.11 percent in the first three months of the year.

By comparison, the rate of U.S. credit card payments at least 90 days overdue fell to 1.16 percent from 1.27 percent in the year-ago period and 1.37 percent in the first quarter.

"Fewer people are struggling with unemployment. That gives people confidence, the means … to pay their debt," said Wendy Burkholder, executive director of Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Hawaii. "That said, what we see is people whose income really dropped during the recession years and have yet to recover. They are still struggling to regain the ground that they lost. I don’t think we’re confident yet in the strength of the economy."

The average debt per Hawaii borrower dropped 0.1 percent to $5,536 from $5,543 in the second quarter of 2013. It rose 1.3 percent from $5,464 in the first quarter.

Nationally, average card debt per borrower was up slightly in the second quarter, rising about 0.2 percent to $5,234 from $5,226. It rose 1.4 percent from the first quarter of this year.