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Who owes the most, and least, on credit cards

James Gimpel

Posted: 08.28.2009 / 7:46 AM PDT

The economic crisis is in large part about a rising tide of personal debt. Much of this debt has resulted from costly housing and bad home loans. But there’s another big source of debt: credit cards.

Surveys show notable personal and geographic differences in the way consumers borrow and spend. These attitudes about personal debt may influence people’s judgments on other issues, such as the size of the national debt. Such judgments, in turn, can shape opinions on proposals for new government spending – such as the spending that would be needed for some of the healthcare reforms under consideration.

For these reasons, we thought it would be revealing to examine debt loads, using a set of recent polls. We pooled three surveys from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, taken in January 2006, September 2007, and February 2008. We then analyzed the data to see which of Patchwork Nation’s 12 community types contained the most debt-ridden and debt-free populations.

The results could suggest which locations may be slow to get back on their feet and which may recover more quickly.

The question Pew asked was the same in all three surveys: Thinking about the money you owe on credit cards and installment loans (excluding your mortgage), would you say you owe: (a) a lot more than you can afford, (b) a little more than you can afford, (c) about what you can afford, or (d) less than you can afford. Respondents could also volunteer that they had no such debt or loans.

The overall picture was this: Roughly the same number of people – equaling about 22 percent – reported owing more than they could afford as reported having no credit-card or installment debts at all. Fifty-seven percent said they owed about what they could afford or less.

The leading locations for credit-card and installment debt were “Military Bastions” – places where enlisted personnel are often preyed upon by unscrupulous payday lenders and auto dealers. This finding bolsters related studies reported here and here.

About 30 percent of the respondents in these locations said they owed more than they could afford.

By contrast, only 14 percent of those living in “Mormon Outposts” reported owing more than they could afford. The LDS church emphasizes debt-free living, and that teaching seems to be reflected in our data. Twenty-eight percent of respondents in these locations said they had no credit-card or installment debt at all. This means that the “Mormon Outposts” share with the “Emptying Nests” (which have retirees and baby boomers) the distinction of having the largest proportion of debt-free residents.

The other community types are in between. Notably, the most affluent locations, the “Monied ’Burbs,” are only slightly better off than the nation as a whole: Twenty percent of those in the “Monied ’Burbs” reported owing more than they could afford.

Meanwhile, “Minority Central” communities, which have large African-American populations, had almost as many debt problems as in “Military Bastions”: Twenty-eight percent in “Minority Central” said they owed more than they could afford.

Agricultural “Tractor Country” communities were less indebted than the general population, with only 18 percent reporting that they owed more than they could afford. But on the other hand, only 15 percent of “Tractor Country” residents reported having no debt at all – a figure on the low end of the debt-free numbers.

We also analyzed a similar CBS News/New York Times survey from December 2007. Fifty-nine percent of all respondents reported being uncomfortable with their level of personal debt, and the geographic variations in the results mirrored those in the Pew surveys.

In the CBS/Times survey, 72 percent reported discomfort with the level of the national debt.

The suggestion here is that long before the healthcare debate commenced, the seeds of opposition to more government spending had been planted. Thus some Americans’ concern about the healthcare initiatives may be a reasoned response to the expense – and far from paranoia about “death panels” and the quality of care.