With the economy showing signs of life despite the ongoing impact of the coronavirus pandemic, WalletHub’s new Credit Card Debt Study revealed that U.S. consumers paid down $118 billion in credit card debt during the first half of 2020 – an all-time record. This record reduction in credit card debt has been driven largely by generous unemployment benefits and household austerity measures stemming from the pandemic, and the result gives us at least a bit of a silver lining to point to from 2020.
WalletHub now projects that U.S. consumers will end the year with a slight reduction in credit card debt for the first time since the end of the Great Recession in 2009. Not all areas of the country will fare as well as others, however, judging from the most recent data. WalletHub compared how credit card debt levels changed across all states during Q2, and you can see the best and worst finishers below.| States with the Biggest Debt Paydown | States with the Smallest Debt Paydown |
| California | Alaska |
| Texas | South Dakota |
| Florida | North Dakota |
| New York | Wyoming |
| Illinois | Vermont |
