RI Has 14th Lowest Credit Card Debt in U.S. -- New Study
GoLocalProv News Team
RI Has 14th Lowest Credit Card Debt in U.S. -- New Study
According to a new study completed by WalletHub, RI has the 14th lowest credit card debt in the U.S., ranking 38th out of 51 states.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“At the beginning of 2019, Americans owed over $1 trillion in credit-card debt. And though we repaid $38.2 billion in the first quarter of the year, we’re projected to have a $70 billion net increase by the end of the year,” writes WalletHub.
RI Credit Card Debt Numbers
- Median Credit-Card Balance ($2,392)
- Median Income ($50,512)
- Cost of Interest Until Payoff ($216)
- Expected Payoff Timeframe (12 months and 15 days)
The Rankings
RI ranks behind New Jersey and Illinois, who rank 36th and 37th respectively.
RI ranks ahead of Iowa and West Virginia, who rank 39th and 40th overall.
The state with the lowest credit card debt is Indiana, while the state with the highest credit card debt is Alaska.
See the Rankings in the Map Below
The Method
In order to determine the states with the most and least sustainable credit-card debts, WalletHub first looked at the median credit-card balances and credit card payments of residents in each of 50 states and the District of Columbia as of September 2018, based on TransUnion data.
Their analysis includes credit cards that carried a balance and excludes store cards.
Using the median credit-card balance and monthly credit card payment of residents in each state, they determined the required number of months to pay off that balance and the resulting finance charges.
In order to do so, WalletHub made the following assumption:
- Consumers would pay an average 16.91 percent interest rate, based on the APR paid by existing cardholders, according to the average interest rate assessed on accounts with finance charges. Using that percentage, we computed the cost of paying off the state’s median credit-card balance.
Finally, WalletHub ranked the states based on the calculator’s outputs. Rank 1 corresponds with the state with the least sustainable credit-card debt — that is, the state with the longest payoff timeline.
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