Everything’s bigger in… Alaska?
Published July 31, 2008 @ 08:21AM PT
Posted by Sarah Byrnes on Caveat Emptor July 30, 2008 | Permalink
Or at least credit card debt is, apparently. Our Partner CFED released this data as part of their annual Assets and Opportunities Score Card, showing that Alaska has the highest median credit card debt per borrower in the nation, at $3,384. (For those of you who slept through math class back in the day, medians differ from averages. The median is the middle number in a list of numbers, so that half of all residents in a state have higher than the median amount of debt, and half have lower.)
Alaska pretty much crushes all the other states, which range from $2,042 per borrower (New Hampshire) to $1,098 (Mississippi). In other words, the difference between #2 and #51 is actually less than the difference between #1 and #2. In response to this news, Steve Cleary of AkPIRG offered this comment: “Alaska prides itself in being the biggest in many categories, but this dubious distinction is nothing to be proud of. Credit card debt is bad for consumers. This high cost credit is taking hard-earned money from working Alaskans.”
Here’s how the rest of the Top Ten shakes out:
1. Alaksa $3,384
2. New Hampshire $2,109
3. Connecticut $2,094
4. Maryland $2,042
5. Colorado $2,030
6. Nevada $1,994
7. Virginia $1,983
8. Delaware $1,960
9. Washington $1,941
10. Massachusetts $1,937
You can see the rest of the list here.
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