SF, San Jose residents some of the least debt-ridden in the country

The Urban Institute (UI), a think tank created by then President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 to address American quality of life, released an interactive map illustrating which U.S. counties’ residents carry the most personal debt.

It turns out San Francisco is one of the least debt-ridden places in the country.

On average, 33 percent of U.S. households have some debt in collection, defined as “past-due credit lines that have been closed […] as well as unpaid bills reported to the credit bureaus that the creditor is attempting to collect” and extrapolated from “identified, consumer-level records from a major credit bureau.”

But in San Francisco, it’s a mere 16 percent, tied with Santa Clara County. That’s not the lowest in the country—a handful of places manage to dip down to single digits. But it’s one of the lowest rates in California, bested only by wealthy Marin County, which UI estimates at a rate of just 15 percent.

As CityLab notes, the map shows most of the U.S. is “under crushing debt,” but San Francisco is comparably sound—at least by these specific standards.

This isn’t to say San Franciscans are debt-free entirely. When student loan refinancing site LendEDU ranked American cities by credit card debt in 2015, San Francisco had the second highest debt level in the state. UI’s “in collections” standard simply measures those places where debt hits the hardest.

For contrast’s perspective, of California’s 58 counties, only two places—Placer County and San Mateo County—manages to fall below 20 percent on the UI metric.

It’s not hard to figure out why SF is beating the spread; U.S. Census estimates reveal median income in the city rises year after year.

Still, seeing precisely how much wealth Californians have now concentrated in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, especially within in the last five years, becomes shocking while viewed in these terms.

Here are the debt rates across California, from the slight to the most grave. Note that two counties, Sierra and Alpine, didn’t yield enough data to place:

Marin: 15 percent
San Francisco: 16 percent
San Jose: 16 percent
San Mateo: 17 percent
Placer: 19 percent
Santa Cruz: 20 percent
Yolo: 21 percent
Sonoma: 23 percent
Napa: 23 percent
Alameda: 23 percent
Nevada: 23 percent
San Luis Obispo: 23 percent
El Dorado: 24 percent
Orange: 25 percent
Contra Costa: 25 percent
Amador: 25 percent
Contra Costa: 25 percent
Plumas: 26 percent
Mono: 26 percent
Mariposa: 27 percent
Humboldt: 28 percent
Santa Barbera: 28 percent
Ventura: 28 percent
San Diego: 28 percent
Calaveras: 29 percent
Tuolumne: 29 percent
Inyo: 29 percent
Sikiyou: 30 percent
Modoc: 30 percent
Los Angeles: 31 percent
Sacramento: 31 percent
Butte: 31 percent
Mendocino: 31 percent
Trinity: 31 percent
San Benito: 32 percent
Colusa: 32 percent
Monterey: 33 percent
Solano: 33 percent
Sutter: 33 percent
Glenn: 33 percent
Shasta: 33 precent
Stanislaus: 35 percent
Madera: 35 percent
Lassen: 36 percent
Imperial: 36 percent
Riverside: 37 percent
San Joaquin: 37 percent
Del Norte: 38 percent
Tehema: 39 percent
San Bernadino: 40 percent
Merced: 40 percent
Fresno: 42 percent
Tulare: 42 percent
Lake: 42 percent
Yuba: 43 percent
Kern: 43 percent
Kings: 44 percent