Americans Are Really Terrible at Paying Their Bills

[Agschmid]

Looking for an evergreen industry to invest in? Try debt collection. According to a new report by the Urban Institute, more than 35 percent of Americans owe nonmortgage debt that’s been turned over to a collection agency—including anything from credit card balances to student loans to medical bills and parking tickets. If that sounds especially shocking, consider: In 2004, the Federal Reserve found that 36.4 percent of Americans had debt in collection on their credit file.

[center][/center]

Like most financial ills, Americans in some parts of the country are having more trouble paying off their bills than others. As shown on this map above, the South is especially plagued with debt collectors—in some corners of the region, more than 61 percent of adults with credit reports have an agency on their tail. What’s more, these figures don’t include low-income Americans who are shut out of mainstream credit sources and instead rely on services such as payday lenders. (One slightly positive note: When you cut bills out of the picture, and focus only on credit-card balances and actual loans, only 5.3 percent have debt past due.)

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/07/29/debt_collection_map_americans_are_terrible_at_paying_their_bills.html

[hobbit709]

1. Hard to pay bills when you're not making enough to live on.

highest percentage is in those states with the lowest income levels.

[Agschmid]

2. Some similarities...

*Median not mean.

[jberryhill]

4. finer resolution....

[jberryhill]

3. And here is a poverty map

[Agschmid]

5. Thanks, these two more easily can be compared.

[jberryhill]

6. Pretty much what we both expected to find

...since we were googling up the same sort of map for comparison.

Interestingly, there is an area of northern Nevada which seems to stand out on the debt map, but not the poverty map. Not sure what that means, though.

Possibly just low numbers.

[Agschmid]

7. Or the dates, the one from Slate is more recent.

A few years can make a big difference!

[jberryhill]

8. Ah...

Yeah, a drought can easily upend loans taken by inadequately insured agricultural operations.

The kind of bet you have to make as a farmer - that a crop several months from now will pay off what it took to grow, harvest and then some - makes day-trading seem stable. And the utilization ratio of a lot of the capital equipment is just awful.