Report: Fayette credit card debt index 5th lowest in Georgia

A recent study on credit card debt showed that Fayette County residents have some the lowest debt when compared to other Georgia counties.

New York financial technology SmartAsset conducted the study, which found that Fayette County ranked No. 5 overall with the lowest credit card debt index of counties in Georgia.

Fayette tallied $39,936 in per capita income and $4,818 per capita in credit card debt. In terms of credit card debt as a percentage of income, Fayette was at 12.1 percent.

Fayette’s overall credit card debt index score was 84.98, the fifth lowest among Georgia’s 159 counties.

SmartAsset said the aim of the study was to find the places in the United States with the least credit card debt. To that end, the ratio of credit card debt to per capita income was calculated for every county. This number can serve as insight into whether people will be able to pay off that debt.

SmartAsset also calculated the ratio of credit card debt to net wealth per capita for each county. This measure provides a broader picture of an area’s financial stability.

Finally, SmartAsset indexed each factor and calculated an overall index by taking a weighted average of each of these indices. The credit card to income index was given a weight of one and the credit card to net wealth index was given a weight of two. The places with the highest overall index value ranked the highest.