Gary among 5% of cities with least credit card risk
Crusader Staff Report
When it comes to credit card debt, Gary residents are everywhere most Americans want to be.
The Steel City is among the 5 percent of cities where resident have the least credit card risk, according to WalletHub, a website that offers free credit scores and full credit reports that are updated on a daily basis.
With credit card debt recently hitting an all-time high and the Federal Reserve making debt even more expensive with another rate hike on Wednesday, March 21, the personal-finance website WalletHub this week released a pair of new reports examining the impact of Fed rate hikes and the cities that are most at risk.
To determine which cities have the biggest problem with credit card debt, WalletHub used its payoff calculator to compare more than 2,500 of the largest U.S. cities based on how long it will take the average person to pay off their debt and how much balances have increased in the last year. You can find a few highlights below.
The report found that Gary households ranked in the 10th percentile of customers who had an average credit debt of $5,812. The city also ranked in the 71st percentile when it comes to paying off credit card debt, which is 43 months for the average Gary resident.
The average household’s balance, at $8,600, is $138 higher than the level WalletHub has identified as being sustainable.
Credit card debt statistics speak to the financial health of American households. They can also foreshadow over-borrowing bubbles, changes to lending standards, and other trends with the potential to impact our wallets. And the latest news is not good.
Americans now owe more than $1 trillion in credit card debt for the first time ever, after adding a post-Great Recession record $92.2 billion in 2017. Only four times in the past 30 years have Americans spent so much in a year. And in each of those prior cases, the charge-off rate – currently hovering near historical lows – rose the following year. There wasn’t nearly as much kindling on the fire, either.
