New Yorkers among most financially distressed in the U.S., study finds

New York is the 10th-ranked state for having the most people living in financial distress, or "having a credit account that is in forbearance or has its payments deferred, meaning the account holder is temporarily allowed to not make payments due to financial difficulty," the study reveals.

New Yorkers are some of the most financially distressed nationwide, according to a study released by WalletHub last week.

“Measuring the share of residents in financial distress is a good way to take the pulse of a state and see whether people are generally thriving or having trouble making ends meet," WalletHub analyst Cassandra Happe said in the study. "When you combine data about people delaying payments with other metrics like bankruptcy filings and credit score changes, it paints a good picture of the overall economic trends of a state.”

Here's how New York fared.

Where does New York stand?

The Empire State ranked as No. 10 with a total score of 49.25. According to the study, New York ranked high when it came to credit score and change in bankruptcy filings. Data also showed that New Yorkers showed high interest in search terms such as "debt" and loans," ranking first and ninth, respectively.

New York comes in behind Michigan, Texas, Nevada, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and Mississippi.

New York City and Buffalo also ranked in the top 100 of cities — three and 67, respectively — with the most people in financial distress in a WalletHub study released earlier this year.

NYC saw a big increase in non-business bankruptcy filings in 2023 compared to 2022, according to the study, and people in New York search Google for debt- and loan-related terms more than people in most other cities.

How WalletHub assessed financial distress

WalletHub compared all 50 states across nine key metrics in six overall categories: average credit score, change in the number of bankruptcy filings between March 2023 and March 2024, the share of people with accounts in distress, the average number of accounts in distress and "debt" and "loans" search interest indexes, which are the rate at which people search Google for “debt” and “loans" in the state.

The weighted average across all metrics were then determined in order to calculate an overall score for each state and the resulting scores were used to rank-order the states. Information was sourced from WalletHub's own data, as well as the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, TransUnion, and Google Trends.

Emily Barnes is the New York State Team consumer advocate reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @byemilybarnes . Get in touch at ebarnes@gannett.com .

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: New Yorkers among most financially distressed in the U.S., study finds