Money Matters
San Antonio ranks among 5 cities with greatest financial stress during pandemic

During the pandemic-produced recession, financial woes are weighing heavily on many Texans, including San Antonians.
A study released this week by personal finance website WalletHub found San Antonio ranks fourth in the U.S. for financial distress during the pandemic.
To examine where Americans are struggling the most financially, WalletHub compared the 100 largest cities across nine key metrics that were rolled into six categories. Factors taken into consideration include average credit score, number of bankruptcy filings between June 2019 and June 2020, and online searches regarding debt and loans.
Among the categories, San Antonio ranks:
- No. 1 for online searches for loans.
- No. 5 for credit score (with an average score of 637 in September, the second lowest on the list).
- No. 12 for people in distress, which looked at the share of people with accounts in distress in September, as well as the change from January-September.
WalletHub defines a distressed account as one for which payments have been reduced, skipped, or delayed.
Among Texas cities, San Antonio has a lot of company in WalletHub's top 10. Houston appears at No. 3, followed by Dallas at No. 5, Austin at No. 8, and Fort Worth at No. 10.
In September, the statewide unemployment rate was 8.3 percent, while the nationwide unemployment rate was 7.7 percent. Last month, the Houston area's unemployment rate stood at 9.6 percent, up from 8.1 percent the previous month — the highest among the state's major metros. The September jobless rate was 7.8 percent in San Antonio, and slightly better elsewhere: 6.4 percent in Austin, 7.4 percent in Dallas, and 7.6 percent in Fort Worth.
According to the study, Houston and Dallas tie with San Antonio for online searches about loans. Houston is also tied for first regarding online searches about debt.
In all, 13 Texas cities are included in the ranking. Irving demonstrates the most financial stability of the 13 cities, according to WalletHub, with a financial stress ranking at No. 72.
The highest financial distress is found in Las Vegas, says WalletHub, followed by Chicago.
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A version of this story originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.com.