A study by an online credit score provider warns that Americans are forgetting the lessons of the Great Recession, and piling on record amounts of debt.
WalletHub on Wednesday released an index of financial literacy that ranked Louisiana as having the worst levels of financial-education programs and consumer habits among the 50 states and Washington, D.C. New Hampshire ranked the highest.
The subsidiary of Washington, D.C.-based Evolution Finance Inc. reported that average credit-card debt per U.S. household peaked at $8,463 in the fourth quarter of 2007 at the Great Recession began, and fell to a low of $776.6 billion in the 1st quarter of 2011. It rose from $7,893 at the end of 2015 to $8,377 on Dec. 31, 2016.
“We ended 2016 with $89.2 billion in new credit-card debt, the highest increase since 2007. That’s unsurprising, considering that only two in five adults actually have a budget,” the report said.
“There’s really no shortage of statistics that one can cite to illustrate our money-management shortcomings — from the 18% of Americans who spend more than they make to the 50 of folks who don’t have a rainy-day fund,” it said.
Half of the overall score used in the report came from a medley of measures under the categories of Financial Planning and Habits, and Financial Knowledge and Education. Many of these scores depend on levels of wealth, such as savings patterns, and measures of the population’s overall education levels.
The other half of the score relies on WalletHub’s WalletLiteracy Survey. This is from the results a 30-question exam of financial knowledge taken by 8,740 people nationally.
Top-ranking New Hampshire was 4th on WalletLiteracy, 1st on Financial Planning and Habits and 6th on Financial Knowledge and Education. It had the 2nd highest share of adults with a rainy day fund, and the 2nd lowest share of unbanked households.
Bottom-ranking Louisiana was 47th on WalletLiteracy, 51st on Financial Planning and Habits, and 31st on Financial Knowledge and Education. The state had the highest share of unbanked households.
WalletLiteracy Survey scores increased steadily by income, education and age—except that it declined slightly for those over age 64.
Men (71.36) scored slightly better than women (66.1) on the WalletLiteracy Survey. Those who were married (74.10) scored significantly higher than others. Lowest was among single, never married (61.91), and only slightly worse than for those who were unmarried but living with a partner (64.80), separated or divorced (66.32) or widowed (66.17).
