States Where People Have the Fewest Debt Problems

States in which people have a high percentage of debt in collection tend to be those where the recession damaged people’s financial situation the most, according to a new report from the Urban Institute:

Nevada, which was hard hit by the housing crisis, tops the list of past-due states: 47 percent of people with a credit file have reported debt in collections. The District of Columbia and an additional 12 states (11 in the South) are over the 40 percent mark: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia.

On the other end of the spectrum,, in some states, the figure is about half of Nevada’s. The 10 lowest include: North Dakota (19.3%), Hawaii (22.7%), Nebraska (23.9%), Minnesota (19.8%), Montana (26.2%), Connecticut (26.2%), South Dakota (20.8%), Iowa (26.3%), Massachusetts (23%) and Vermont (23.7%). A review of unemployment by state in June shows that North Dakota, Nebraska, Vermont, South Dakota, Montana, Minnesota and Iowa all have unemployment rates at or below 4.5%.

(Via 24/7 Wall Street)