Texas ranks fourth overall among states with the most people in financial distress, according to a new study by personal finance company WalletHub.
To determine the financial hardship of residents of each state, WalletHub used nine metrics, including credit scores, number of people with “accounts in distress,” increases in the number of bankruptcy filings and the frequency with which people used the internet to search terms including “debt” and “loans.”
The Lone Star State performed its worst in bankruptcy filings, ranking fourth for its jump in filings from 2025 to 2026. The state also ranked eighth overall for the highest search interest for “loans.”
Chip Lupo, an analyst at WalletHub, said assessing the financial distress of a state’s residents can be a good indicator of its overall financial health and how people feel about their finances.
“Measuring the share of residents in financial distress is a good way to take the pulse of a state and see whether people are generally thriving or having trouble making ends meet,” Lupo said in a statement.
The ranking comes amid a tense midterm season in which inflation, affordability and other kitchen-table issues weigh heavily with voters.
In Texas, political candidates are pointing fingers about who’s to blame for the state’s economic doldrums. Democratic gubernatorial candidate State Rep. Gina Hinojosa recently blamed Gov. Greg Abbott for the state falling from No. 2 to No. 4 on CNBC’s annual Top States for Business ranking.
“This ranking change is a direct result of Greg Abbott’s failed policies that put billionaire donors before working Texans: siphoning $1 billion from Texas’ public schools into an unaccountable voucher program, raising electricity for millions of households, and handing data centers the most generous tax dollar giveaway in the country,” Hinojosa said in a statement.
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