Chicago and Houston were named the No. 1 and 2 cities with the most people in financial distress, according to WalletHub, which compared the 100 largest cities without data limitations across nine key metrics. Its data set includes factors such as average credit score, the change in the number of bankruptcy filings between December 2022 and December 2023, and the share of people with accounts in distress.
Chicago had the biggest change in the share of people who had accounts in distress between fourth quarter 2022 and fourth quarter 2023, with a nearly 30 percent increase. That means nearly 30 percent more residents were allowed to skip payments due to financial difficulty in 2023. In addition, Chicago residents had the third-most accounts in distress per person.
Houston has a high share of the population with accounts in distress compared to most other cities, at more than 8 percent, and it also has a high number of accounts in distress per person. In addition, many H