The credit-card default rate rose by 112 basis points to 11.37 percent in January, according to Fitch Ratings, but that rate could start falling with more unemployment data like the numbers that came out Wednesday. That would be good news for consumers, whose spending accounts for 70 percent of GDP, as was well as for banks.

Jobs in the U.S. private sector fell by 20,000 in February, which is better than expected, according to a report released Wednesday by Automatic Data Processing. A loss of 50,000 jobs was expected, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey.

While this is good news, the job market is still contracting, so the jury is still out on where the credit card default rate will go for February.

"Late-stage delinquencies are still trending in the 4 percent range industry-wide, which is keeping charge-off levels in the double digits," said Michael Dean, managing director at Fitch Ratings, in a press release . "Until we see some meaningful improvement in unemployment numbers, consumer delinquencies and defaults will remain elevated at or near these levels."

In addition, the ADP numbers released today are subject to revision. ADP initially said that employment declined by 20,000 jobs in January, but later revised that to a decline of 60,000.

So while there is hope in today's numbers, it remains to be seen whether it's a real sign of improvement.

Fitch expects the unemployment rate to peak at 10.4 percent in the second quarter of 2010 but to remain above 10 percent for the remainder of the year.