Save us all, Bernie!
America is drowning in student debt—it's a fact that won't make you spit-take that Happy Meal you're splurging on right now because, well, you already knew that.
Because you too are likely drowning.
According to a report from Citizens Bank, most college graduates spend about a fifth of their salaries paying back their student loans. Fun!
What you might not know is just how much where you live reflects just how far down the student-debt-vortex you've been sucked.
A new study from personal finance website—and pusher of its student loan calculator—WalletHub shows which cities in the country are most overleveraged on their student-loan debts.
Source: Wallethub
Here's how they did it: Analysts divided the average student-loan balance of a city by the median income of residents aged 25-44 in that city. They looked at 2,514 cities across the U.S. In the methodology, WalletHub notes that "city" refers to "city proper" and not any surrounding metro areas. Then 100 points were assigned to the city with the highest debt-to-income ratio and 0 points to the lowest, allowing cities to be graded on a percentile. You can tool around with the map to see how your city fares.
And here's what they found.
The city of Vorhees, New Jersey was the most overleveraged, with an median income of $26,711 pitted against average student debt of $46,423 (the ration of debt to income: 174 percent!).
In major cities, New Yorkers had an average debt of $46,035 against median income of $63,235 (73 percent); Los Angeles an average debt of $34,776 against median income of $52,737 (66 percent); and Chicago's average $37,445 and median income for residents 25-44 of $56,391 saw it's debt-to-income land at 66 percent.
San Francisco's whopping median income of $105,468 and average student debt of $41,715 meant a debt-to-income ratio of 40 percent.
But then, those poor bastards have to deal with SF rents...