Cities Paying Down The Most Credit Card Debt

Laden with pandemic-related emergency assistance and little to spend it on thanks to COVID-19 lockdowns, U.S. consumers paid down a record amount of their credit card balances in 2020. But since then, they have returned to their usual vice of carrying higher amounts of unsecured, high-interest consumer debt.

Consumers added $87.3 billion to credit card balances in 2021 after paying down $82.1 billion in credit card debt in 2020, according to the online personal finance information provider WalletHub. U.S. consumers had credit card balances totaling $1.02 trillion as of the fourth quarter of last year. The average credit card debt of a U.S. household was $8,590 by the end of that quarter.

To identify the cities paying down the most credit card debt, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed WalletHub’s ranking of average credit card paydowns for 182 U.S. cities. All data is from the report except median household income figures, which are from the Census Bureau American Community Survey 2019 five-year estimates. To create its report, WalletHub used data from the Census Bureau, Federal Reserve, TransUnion, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

High levels of debt tend to correlate with high levels of paydowns, as consumers (at least those who do not tumble into insolvency) try to whittle down their debts. But that is not always the case. Some debtors are barely able to scrounge up money to pay their minimum balances (plus interest) from month to month, while others manage to devote larger amounts toward these monthly payments.

For example, plastic debtors in Pearl City, Hawaii, owed an average of $16,126 on their cards by the end of 2021 but only paid down $908 throughout the year. Debtors in Santa Clarita, California, on the other hand, who carry an average of $14,995 in credit card debt, lowered their balances by $4,715 over the year, according to WalletHub. (Both California and Hawaii are among the states with the highest cost of living. This state has the highest cost of living.)

Among the top 25 cities where debtors paid down the most credit card debt in 2021, the average debt was $12,378 by the end of 2021 and the average pay down was $2,879. But people do not just have credit card debt. These are 50 U.S. counties with the most student debt.

Click here to see cities paying down the most credit card debt

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