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Give Wilkes-Barre residents some credit, please.
No, seriously. In a new ranking of how well residents manage money in 2,570 cities nationwide, the Diamond City ranked 1,993rd (tied with Chicago), the worst in the region and 11th worst amoung 86 Pennsylvania cities on the list.
Titled “2016’s Best & Worst Cities at Money Management”, the report was issued by WalletHub, which bills itself as the one-stop website for information “to make better financial decisions and save money.”
The report looked at eight financial factors for residents of each city: Credit score, average number of late payments, average percent of credit used, foreclosure rates, and debt to income ratios for credit card, mortgage, car loan and student loan debts.
None of the three cities from Lackawanna and Luzerne County on the list did very well, but Wilkes-Barre did the worst. Hazleton had the best overall ranking at 1,697th place, still putting it in the bottom 34 percent.
WalletHub argued that the nation as a whole isn’t particularly budget savvy, noting the average credit rating — an overall score with a maximum of 850 calculated in this case by TransUnion — is 668, “considered fair by the most common scoring models.”
Nationally, the report added, “three-quarters of college students with credit cards admit to being unaware of late-payment fees.”
The report suggested money smarts begin at home, with parents talking to their children about financial matters. One study by T. Rowe Price found 72 percent of parents are reluctant to hold that conversation.
But personal finance illiteracy extends to schools, the report says, with fewer than one in five teachers feeling competent to teach a course on it, and only 17 states requiring high school students to complete a course in it.
Why does it matter? In a nutshell, the report says, youngsters who learn about personal finances grow up to make better money decisions:
“The National Endowment for Financial Education found that students who were required to learn about money management at school became better adult consumers with higher credit scores, a greater tendency to save money and a lower likelihood of compulsive spending.”