Money Matters
Report names Dallas among cities under the most financial stress during pandemic
During the pandemic-produced recession, financial woes are weighing heavily on many Texans, including Dallasites.
A study just released by personal finance website WalletHub found Dallas ranks fifth in the U.S. for financial distress during the pandemic.
To examine where Americans are struggling the most financially, WalletHub compared the 100 largest cities across nine key metrics that were rolled into six categories. Factors taken into consideration include average credit score, number of bankruptcy filings between June 2019 and June 2020, and online searches regarding debt and loans.
Among the categories, Dallas ranks:
- No. 1 for people with online search interest in loans and No. 5 for search interest in debt.
- No. 30 for bankruptcy filings increase.
- No. 58 for average people in distress, which considered the share of people with accounts in distress in September, as well as the change in that figure from January-September.
- No. 69 for average number of accounts in distress, which looked at the average number of accounts in distress in September, as well as the change from January-September.
WalletHub defines a distressed account as one for which payments have been reduced, skipped, or delayed.
Among Texas cities, Dallas has a lot of company in WalletHub's top 10. Houston appears at No. 3, followed closely by San Antonio at No. 4, Austin at No. 8, and Fort Worth at No. 10.
In September, the statewide unemployment rate was 8.3 percent, while the nationwide unemployment rate was 7.7 percent. Last month, the Houston area's unemployment rate stood at 9.6 percent, up from 8.1 percent the previous month — the highest among the state's major metros. The September jobless rate was 6.4 percent in Austin, 7.4 percent in Dallas, 7.6 percent in Fort Worth, and 7.8 percent in San Antonio.
According to the study, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio are tied for first among the country's 100 largest United States cities for online searches about loans. Houston is also tied for first regarding online searches about debt.
In all, 13 Texas cities are included in the ranking. Irving demonstrates the most financial stability of the 13 cities, according to WalletHub, with a financial stress ranking at No. 72.
The highest financial distress is found in Las Vegas, says WalletHub, followed by Chicago.
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A version of this story originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.com.
