Northwest Iowa — Two area counties are ranked in the Top 10 of Iowa counties where people carry the least amount of credit card debt, according to the website smartasset.com.
In the study, O’Brien County came in as having the 3rd lowest per capita credit card debt, with Sioux County coming in at number 9.
The study looked for Iowa counties with the least credit card debt. To do that, the study’s authors say they calculated the ratio of credit card debt to per capita income for every county.
The website says they also calculated the ratio of credit card debt to net wealth per capita for each county.
Lastly, according to the study’s authors, they indexed each factor and calculated an overall index by taking a weighted average of each index. The credit card to income index was given a weight of one, while the credit card to net wealth index was given a rate of two.
The study showed the average annual per capita income for O’Brien County as $30,933. The study calculated per capita wealth at $39,993. Per capita credit card debt in O’Brien County is just $1,962, or 6.3-percent of income, and just 4.9-percent of wealth.
In Sioux County, the study showed per capita annual income of $27,037, with per capita wealth calculated at $39,054. Per capita credit card debt in Sioux County was listed as $2,037, or 7.5-percent of income, and 5.2-percent of wealth.
The other Iowa counties who made the list of the 10 lowest credit card debt counties include:
1) Kossuth
2) Henry
3) O’Brien
4) Carroll
5) Jackson
6) Deleware
7) Allamakee
8) Dickinson
9) Sioux
10) Buena Vista
Incidentally, Dickinson County, with a per capita income of $36,042 was the only county in the Top 10 with a higher per capita income in the study than O’Brien County, where per capita income is $30,933.
If you’d like to see the entire study, visit smartasset.com.
