NEW YORK—About one-in-six credit cardholders in America's biggest cities carry a balance of $10,000 or more, according to a new report.
The CompareCards.com study reveals most of the cities with the biggest percentages of people with five-figure credit card debt are clustered along the East Coast and West Coast.
“Often, it is the wealthiest cities, not the less affluent ones as one might expect, that carry the biggest credit card balances,” CompareCards.com said.
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Key Findings
- The five-figure credit debt capital of the U.S.: Nearly 23% of credit cardholders in the Bridgeport, Conn., metropolitan area owe more than $10,000 on their cards. Almost 2% of cardholders in Bridgeport owe more than $50,000, which is also the highest among the nation’s 100 biggest metros, the study shows. Virginia Beach, Va., Washington, D.C., and New York rounded out the top four, where 20.5%, 19.9% and 19% — respectively — of users have five-figure balances.
- The five-figure credit card debt state: Among the top 10 cities with the highest percentages of cardholders with five-figure card debt, three were in California. Los Angeles ranked fifth at 18.6%, San Diego placed seventh at 18.5% and Oxnard came in at ninth at 18.1%. Connecticut was a close runner-up in the state contest, with Bridgeport, Hartford and New Haven all ranking in the top 14.
- Five-figure card debts rarer in the South: Five of the seven cities among the 100 metros with the lowest percentage of cardholders with five-figure card debt were in the South. Only 12.4% of cardholders in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Indianapolis had more than $10,000 in card balances. Greensboro, N.C., Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tenn., and Jackson, Miss., were among the other cities near the bottom of the list, all having less than 13% of cardholders with five-figure card debts, the study shows.