Allworth Advice: Financial Anxiety
Amy Wagner with Allworth Financial discusses financial stress.
Phil Didion, Cincinnati Enquirer
For the last few years, America has been through several waves of spiking inflation rates, high unemployment rates and recession rumors. For some, it’s all catching up now and putting pressure on their personal finances.
Personal finance company WalletHub recently released a study that examined which of the 100 largest cities in the U.S. are dealing with the biggest financial burdens in 2024. And one Florida city placed in the top 10 American towns where residents are dealing with the most financial distress.
“Although conditions have significantly improved, many people still are in financial distress,” the study says. “Which WalletHub defines as 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 difficulties.”
Here’s WalletHub’s top 10 cities that are under the most financial distress, which Florida city placed on the list and why.
Where is the biggest financial stress in the U.S.?
To find its rankings, WalletHub used metrics like the average credit score of each city’s residents, the average number of bank accounts in distress, bankruptcy filings and Google searches for phrases with words like “debt” and “loans.”
Densely populated cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Houston took the top four rankings for cities with the most financially distressed residents. But one Florida city slid in at the bottom of the top 10.
Jacksonville placed in 10th among the cities with the most financial stress.
Here’s WalletHub’s list of the top 10 U.S. cities with the most financially distressed residents:
- Chicago, Illinois
- Houston, Texas
- New York, New York
- Los Angeles, California
- Dallas, Texas
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- San Antonio, Texas
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Riverside, California
- Jacksonville, Florida
Is Jacksonville and Florida expensive to live?
According to RentCafe, “The cost of living in Jacksonville is 5% lower than the state average and 7% lower than the national average… Housing is 10% cheaper than the U.S average, while utilities are about the same (as the national average).”
The average price of a home in Jacksonville has gone down almost 1.5% in the last year, ringing in around $290,910, according to Zillow.
So why are Jacksonville residents in financial distress if the cost of housing seems to be going down?
According to the metrics WalletHub used, the reason is most likely debt and low credit scores. In individual categories for this study, Jacksonville ranked in the top 10 cities where residents most frequently google phrases with the word “debt.”
Jacksonville also ranked in the bottom 50th percentile in WalletHub’s credit score category.
Where does Jacksonville rank in largest cities?
One of the unspoken key contributors to Jacksonville’s high ranking on this list could be its size. According to the city’s tourism experts, Jacksonville is more than 840 square miles large, making it the largest city in the continental U.S. by landmass.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s latest population count for Jacksonville was in July 2022 and it says there were 971,319 residents at that time, that’s over 21,000 more residents than were accounted for in 2020.
World Population Review ranks Jacksonville as the 10th largest city in the U.S. by population. That population estimate has Jacksonville sitting right above 1 million people.