State ADI Rankings 2026: Where Household Distress Hits Hardest

The Geography of Distress

The national ADI compresses 90+ indicators into a single number: 56.8, Elevated. Useful for headlines. Useless for understanding who is actually hurting.

The State ADI disaggregates that national figure across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It reveals a country where household financial distress is distributed unevenly — concentrated in specific geographic corridors, driven by different mechanisms in different places, and shaped by state policy choices that either cushion or amplify the damage.

The range is stark. DC scores 76.0 (Serious Stress). Vermont scores 34.5 (Healthy). That 41.5-point gap means a household in Washington, D.C. faces a fundamentally different financial environment than one in Burlington — not because of individual choices, but because of the structural conditions surrounding them.

The Full Rankings

Rank	State	Score	Zone
1	District of Columbia	76.0	Serious Stress
2	Nevada	66.0	Serious Stress
3	Georgia	64.9	Elevated
4	Louisiana	64.5	Elevated
5	Florida	62.8	Elevated
6	Mississippi	62.8	Elevated
7	Delaware	62.1	Elevated
8	California	59.8	Elevated
9	Alabama	58.8	Elevated
10	Oklahoma	57.9	Elevated
11	Illinois	57.3	Elevated
12	New York	56.7	Elevated
13	Texas	56.7	Elevated
14	Kentucky	56.6	Elevated
15	Michigan	56.1	Elevated
16	Maryland	56.0	Elevated
17	New Mexico	55.4	Elevated
18	West Virginia	55.4	Elevated
19	Arkansas	54.1	Elevated
20	New Jersey	53.6	Elevated
21	South Carolina	53.1	Elevated
22	Pennsylvania	52.4	Elevated
23	Ohio	52.3	Elevated
24	Arizona	52.1	Elevated
25	Oregon	51.5	Elevated
26	Tennessee	50.4	Elevated
27	Rhode Island	49.7	Normal
28	Indiana	49.5	Normal
29	North Carolina	48.6	Normal
30	Missouri	47.6	Normal
31	Washington	46.9	Normal
32	Virginia	46.0	Normal
33	Colorado	45.8	Normal
34	Massachusetts	45.6	Normal
35	Connecticut	44.4	Normal
36	Kansas	43.9	Normal
37	Utah	42.5	Normal
38	Minnesota	41.5	Normal
39	Iowa	41.3	Normal
40	Alaska	40.8	Normal
41	Maine	39.4	Normal
42	Wyoming	39.3	Normal
43	Wisconsin	38.6	Normal
44	Nebraska	38.3	Normal
45	Hawaii	38.2	Normal
46	New Hampshire	38.2	Normal
47	Idaho	38.1	Normal
48	Montana	37.0	Normal
49	North Dakota	34.6	Healthy
50	South Dakota	34.5	Healthy
51	Vermont	34.5	Healthy

Zone distribution: 2 Serious Stress, 24 Elevated, 22 Normal, 3 Healthy. The median state scores 50.4 — right at the Normal/Elevated boundary. More than half the country is Elevated or worse.

Two Distress Corridors

The rankings reveal two geographic corridors where distress concentrates.

The Deep South corridor — Louisiana (64.5), Mississippi (62.8), Alabama (58.8), Georgia (64.9), South Carolina (53.1) — averages 60.8, firmly Elevated. Every state in this group has credit card delinquency above the national average. Louisiana’s debt stress Z-score of +1.72 is among the highest in the nation, driven by 16.87% credit card delinquency and 6.72% auto loan delinquency. Alabama stands out for a different reason: its bankruptcy filing rate of 404 per 100K residents is the highest in the country by a wide margin — more than double the national average of 169.

The Sun Belt corridor — Nevada (66.0), Florida (62.8), Arizona (52.1), Texas (56.7), New Mexico (55.4) — averages 58.6. Nevada leads the entire Sun Belt with the second-highest State ADI in the nation, driven primarily by debt stress (Z = +1.56). Florida follows with debt stress as its dominant component. These are states that experienced rapid population growth, pandemic-era migration booms, and housing price surges that have now collided with elevated interest rates.

The Mountain West and northern New England form the opposite poles. North Dakota (34.6), South Dakota (34.5), and Vermont (34.5) are the only three states in the Healthy zone. What they share: low unemployment, low delinquency rates, small populations, and limited exposure to the housing speculation that inflated and then strained Sun Belt markets.

What Drives Which States

The State ADI is built from six components, each capturing a different dimension of household distress. The top contributing component varies dramatically by state — revealing that distress in Alabama looks nothing like distress in California.

Debt Stress (30% weight) is the primary driver in 13 states, mostly in the South and Sun Belt: Nevada, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, Arkansas, South Carolina, Arizona, North Carolina, and New York. These are states where credit card delinquency, mortgage delinquency, and auto loan delinquency are all running above the national average. Louisiana’s credit card delinquency of 16.87% is the highest in the nation.

Economic Need (20% weight) drives 9 states, including the highest-ranked jurisdiction: DC, where 20.6% of the population receives SNAP benefits. New Mexico (19.5% SNAP enrollment), Oregon, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts round out this group — states where the buffer between households and financial crisis is thinnest.

Legal Filings (15% weight) is the top driver in 7 states: Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, and Wisconsin. Alabama’s 404 bankruptcies per 100K residents is an extreme outlier — 2.4 times the national rate. Tennessee (279/100K), Kentucky (234/100K), and Indiana (232/100K) also file at rates well above the national median.

Labor Market (15% weight) leads in 6 states: California (5.5% unemployment), Delaware (5.2%), New Jersey (5.3%), Washington (4.9%), Rhode Island (4.6%), and Alaska (4.8%). California’s high ADI (59.8) despite being the world’s fifth-largest economy is largely a function of persistent unemployment combined with extreme cost of living.

Safety Net Gap (10% weight) is the top contributor in 12 states — predominantly Mountain and Plains states: Kansas, Utah, Minnesota, Iowa, Wyoming, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont. In these low-distress states, every other component is pulling the score down (below average distress), but weak safety net infrastructure — limited Medicaid coverage, exhausted HAF funds, fewer foreclosure protections — is the one factor pushing scores up.

Consumer Complaints (10% weight) leads in 4 states: Maryland, Virginia, Colorado, and Connecticut — higher-income states with elevated CFPB complaint rates relative to their overall distress levels. CFPB complaints concentrate around the largest servicers: Wells Fargo (48,900+ complaints), Bank of America (47,700+), and Ocwen/Onity Group (34,700+) account for a disproportionate share. See all 76 servicer profiles for state-by-state complaint breakdowns.

The DC Paradox

DC’s position at #1 is the most counterintuitive finding in the rankings. The District has the highest median household income of any U.S. jurisdiction. It also has the highest State ADI.

The explanation is inequality. DC’s economy produces extreme wealth at the top and extreme need at the bottom, with almost nothing in between. Five of the six components push DC’s score up:

• Economic Need (Z = +2.51): 20.6% of DC residents receive SNAP benefits — one of the highest rates in the nation, despite the high median income
• Labor Market (Z = +3.04): 6.7% unemployment, the highest of any jurisdiction
• Consumer Complaints (Z = +3.84): 339.9 CFPB mortgage complaints per 100K, far above any state
• Debt Stress (Z = +1.21): Auto loan delinquency of 13.58% is the highest in the country
• Legal Filings (Z = −0.84): The one suppressor — DC’s bankruptcy rate is below average

This is the Two-Economy Problem concentrated in a single jurisdiction. The headline income statistics say DC is thriving. The disaggregated distress data says a substantial portion of its residents are not.

Other high-income states show similar patterns at smaller magnitudes. California (ADI 59.8) combines the world’s fifth-largest economy with 5.5% unemployment and 13.5% SNAP enrollment. Maryland (ADI 56.0) ranks 16th despite being one of the wealthiest states, driven by the nation’s highest CFPB complaint rate outside DC. New Jersey (ADI 53.6) carries high unemployment (5.3%) alongside high housing costs.

Income is not a shield against household distress. The State ADI measures distress directly — delinquency, bankruptcy, unemployment, need — and these indicators don’t care about the state’s GDP.

What the Healthy States Share

The three Healthy states — Vermont (34.5), South Dakota (34.5), and North Dakota (34.6) — share characteristics that explain their low distress scores:

• Low unemployment: North Dakota 2.5%, South Dakota 2.2%, Vermont 3.0% — all well below the 4.0% national average
• Low delinquency: Credit card delinquency ranges from 8.4% (VT) to 10.5% (SD), versus the 12.6% national average
• Low bankruptcy: All three file at less than half the national rate
• Small, stable populations: No pandemic-era migration boom, no housing speculation cycle

The tradeoff: all three rank poorly on safety net infrastructure. Their Safety Net Gap scores are among the highest in the nation. This doesn’t hurt their current ADI scores because every other component is healthy — but it means these states have less capacity to absorb a sudden economic shock. If unemployment were to spike, the absence of robust safety nets would amplify the damage.

Methodology

The State ADI uses cross-sectional Z-score normalization — comparing each state to the 51-jurisdiction mean and standard deviation. This is distinct from the national ADI, which uses temporal Z-scores (comparing the current quarter to a historical baseline).

Components and weights:

Component	Weight	Data Source
Debt Stress	30%	NY Fed Consumer Credit Panel / Equifax
Economic Need	20%	USDA Food and Nutrition Service (SNAP)
Legal Filings	15%	U.S. Courts Administrative Office (Table F-2)
Labor Market	15%	BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics
Consumer Complaints	10%	CFPB Complaint Database
Safety Net Gap	10%	KFF, USDA FNS, US Treasury, State statutes

Scaling: Score = 50 + (composite Z × 17), clipped to [0, 100]. The median state is near 50 by design.

The cross-sectional approach means State ADI scores are relative rankings — they show which states are more distressed than others, not absolute distress levels. A state at 50.0 is average relative to all other states, not necessarily healthy or distressed in absolute terms. For absolute distress measurement, see the national ADI methodology.

All source data is publicly available. The full computation runs via scripts/compute_state_adi.py and outputs to data/indexes/state_adi.json, accessible through the API. For detailed state-level breakdowns, see our State Financial Distress Rankings statistics page and Default Rates by State roundup.

What to Watch

1. Nevada’s trajectory. At 66.0, Nevada is 1 point from the only state in Serious Stress besides DC. Its score is driven almost entirely by debt stress — the same component that transmits national-level distress in the ADI’s leading indicator model. If savings rate declines continue to feed through to delinquency, Nevada will register it first.

2. The Alabama bankruptcy anomaly. At 404 filings per 100K, Alabama’s bankruptcy rate is 2.4× the national average. This is partly structural — Alabama has uniquely permissive filing norms and low attorney costs — but the gap has widened over the past year. Watch whether this rate is leading or lagging national trends.

3. California’s labor market. California’s ADI (59.8) is driven more by unemployment (5.5%) and economic need (13.5% SNAP enrollment) than by debt stress. The state’s distress profile looks fundamentally different from the Deep South — cost-of-living driven rather than credit-driven. AI displacement may accelerate this: California has the highest concentration of AI-exposed white-collar employment in the country.

4. The Deep South cluster. Five contiguous states averaging ADI 60.8 form the densest distress corridor in the country. All five share high debt stress, weak consumer protections, and limited safety net infrastructure. Policy changes in any one state could cascade.

5. Safety net exhaustion. Twelve states have Safety Net Gap as their top contributing component — meaning their current distress is held in check by factors that could erode. HAF (Homeowner Assistance Fund) programs are winding down across most of these states. When that cushion disappears, distress scores will rise even without any change in the underlying economic data.