Fed: Colorado?s Q3 consumer debt highest in region, but down from recent quarters

Consumer debt in Colorado averaged $18,700 per person in the third quarter, highest among the states of the 10th Federal Reserve District, but the average has dropped ?significantly? over the last several quarters, according to a Federal Reserve report Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City?s latest quarterly Consumer Credit Reports attributed the higher consumer debt in Colorado to a higher cost of living here than in the other states in the 10th District, which includes Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Wyoming as well as western Missouri and northern New Mexico.

The average Tenth District consumer debt rose to $15,550 in the third quarter from $15,480 in the second quarter. But the district?s average consumer debt remained well below the U.S. average of $17,300.

The debt figures exclude first mortgages.

Colorado also had a higher debt burden as a percent of disposable income than the other states, and higher than the United States overall, the Fed said.

In the four quarters leading up to the current quarter, minimum debt payments absorbed 14.1 percent of disposable income in Colorado, compared with 13.6 percent for the United States as a whole, the report said.

But the debt burden in Colorado has fallen since hitting a high of 21 percent of disposable income in 2009.

?Since then, reductions in consumer debt and moderate increases in income have pared debt burdens [in Colorado] significantly,? the report said.

Credit delinquencies in Colorado fell below nationwide levels in every category. The state?s auto loan delinquency rate stood at 2.1 percent of outstanding auto loans in Colorado in the third quarter versus 3.2 percent nationally.

Heather Draper covers banking, finance, law and the economy for the Denver Business Journal and writes for the "Finance Etc." blog. Phone: 303-803-9230.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/vertical_2/~3/NoBLh0yQ3X8/fed-colorados-q3-consumer-debt.html

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