Florida is now one of the most financially stressed states in the country, second only to another Southern state, according to a new report by WalletHub, which defines financial distress as having credit in forbearance or deferring payments due to financial difficulty.

“When you combine data about people delaying payments with other metrics like bankruptcy filings and credit score changes, it paints a good picture of the overall economic trends of a state,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said about the findings.

  • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    Alaska’s high rating could very well have something to do with the Permanent Dividend Fund that every resident receives.

    But honestly, this ranking does feel like just another way to keep the masses arguing amongst themselves over which political ideology or state is right; rather than focusing efforts on the ones at the very top sucking up all the wealth from the rest of us.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      According to google, Alaska residents get about $1700 a year per person. That’s not nothing, but it’s hardly enough to guarantee financial solvency. It’s probably not even enough to offset the higher cost of living there.

      • porksnort@slrpnk.net
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        1 month ago

        If you have ever been low income, $1700 is enough to get your attention. You know where that money comes from and when you are low income, a sudden in flow of essentially an extra month and a half of salary for a rural person?

        Well, you’re paying attention to that. So maybe have some perspective about what that kind of money means to a person who has a shitty truck and a barely adequate house and spends months in it through a long winter.

        • Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          29 days ago

          I see so much argument around UBI with the assumption it has to be enough to live off or it’s worthless. But Alaska’s system makes a real difference to reducing the number of people living below poverty level, even being just a small fraction of what is required to live there for a year. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pop4.398

          Although not designed as a social program to redistribute income, the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) has been reducing poverty by providing equal annual payments to nearly all state residents for over 40 years. …the PFD reduced the number of Alaskans with incomes below the US poverty threshold by 20%–40%… The effect of the PFD has been even larger for vulnerable populations. The PFD has reduced poverty rates of rural Indigenous Alaskans from 28% to less than 22%, and has played an important role in alleviating poverty among seniors and children… up to 50% more Alaska children—15% instead of 10%—would be living in poor families without PFD income. The poverty-ameliorating effects of the PFD have lessened somewhat since 2000, as dividend amounts adjusted for inflation have been declining.