Southlake Ranked Among Cities With Biggest Debt Paydown

Southlake was ranked among the top 10 cities with biggest debt paydown in Q1 this year according to personal finance website WalletHub. Southlake residents had a total debt of $227 million of which the average home owed $24,906 on their credit cards.

"[WalletHub] found that consumers paid off $38 billion of their roughly $1 trillion in credit card debt during the first quarter of 2019. Given that this year’s first-quarter paydown was smaller than last year’s, WalletHub now projects a $70 billion net increase in credit card debt during 2019," the organization said in a news release.

In 2018, the year began with $41 billion in credit card debt being paid off during the first quarter. By the end of 2018, there was $67 billion more owed than at the start, WalletHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou said in the news release.

“If the average household’s credit card balance tops $10,000, that would be a breaking point,” Papadimitriou said. “At that point, defaults would rise sharply from the historical lows they’ve hovered near for years now. Access to credit would tighten as a result, and consumer spending would slow, causing further economic damage. Unfortunately, we’re not far from the $10,000 level right now. The average household currently owes roughly $8,390.”