In Credit Karma’s recent Credit Fumble™ research, almost half of all people surveyed (47 percent) said that they had missed one or more payments on a credit card or loan before they entered their 30s. Missing payments have a myriad of potentially negative run on effects: you can incur a missed payment fee, your interest rates might rise, and it could end up on your credit report and potentially cause your credit score to fall. Banks and issuers consider how reliable you were in the past in paying your debts as an indicator in how reliable you will be repaying future debts.
It is a common Credit Fumble that can have many causes. Forty-two percent of people surveyed by Credit Karma listed irresponsibility as a major reason for their Credit Fumbles they made before entering their thirties. Moreover, only 28 percent of people said they had any financial education before college and they may not have properly appreciated the consequences of missing a payment. Credit Karma’s Credit Fumble research found that mitigating factors like sudden unemployment can also have an impact on things like on-time payment percentage.
To show where young adults across America were falling behind the most with their payment histories, we looked at our database of over 50 million Americans to examine the on-time payment percentages of Credit Karma members between the age of 18 and 24:
- Milwaukee, WI: 90.5%
- Madison, WI: 92.2%
- Detroit, MI 92.8%
- Louis, MO: 92.9%
- Memphis, TN: 93.4%
- Cleveland, OH: 93.5%
- Baton Rouge, LA: 94%
- San Bernardino, CA: 94%
- New Orleans, LA: 94%
- San Antonio, TX: 94.3%
Alongside free credit scores and reports, Credit Karma offers its members friendly, personalized information to help each of them understand and make the most of their individual situation.
The data looks at the average percentage of bills paid on time by Credit Karma members between the ages of 18 and 24, who live in the 100 largest cities in the USA and pulled their credit report through Credit Karma in 2015. Credit Karma’s Credit Fumble research draws upon a survey of 1,051 Americans between the age of 31-44, done in partnership with Qualtrics in late 2015, about the struggles they had managing their finances before entering their thirties.