Most of us carry some form of debt. A mortgage payment here, a car loan there, maybe student loans still hanging around, credit card balances that never quite hit zero. But the raw dollar amount doesn’t tell you much about financial health. What matters is how that debt compares to what you’re actually bringing home.
The debt-to-income ratio is an important measure. To calculate it, take your total household debt and divide it by your annual household income. This calculation results in a number that indicates whether a household is borrowing within reasonable limits or exceeding them. When the ratio reaches 1.0, it means that a household owes approximately the same amount as it earns in a year. A ratio higher than 1.0 indicates that debt is increasing faster than income.
In 1999, the country was riding the dot-com wave. Most states hadn’t piled on too much debt yet. By 2025, things look very different in many regions. Real estate went through multiple boom cycles. Energy prices swung wildly. Tech hubs exploded while manufacturing towns struggled. The economic shifts created huge variation in how stretched people feel financially depending on where they live.
The Federal Reserve tracks household debt-to-income ratios at the statea and county level across the United States. Their data visualization below shows these patterns, with western states tending toward higher ratios as they became centers of economic growth and rising costs.
To dig deeper into state-level trends, I calculated the midpoints of the ratio ranges for each state using the Federal Reserve’s county data from 1999 and Q1 2025. The table shows some dramatic changes.
State
DTI 1999
DTI 2025
Percentage Change (%)
Delaware
0.755
1.55
105.298
Wyoming
0.755
1.45
92.053
Mississippi
0.755
1.36
80.1325
Louisiana
0.755
1.28
69.5364
Oklahoma
0.755
1.28
69.5364
Alabama
0.755
1.28
69.5364
Kentucky
0.755
1.175
55.6291
Wisconsin
0.755
1.175
55.6291
Iowa
0.755
1.175
55.6291
Indiana
0.755
1.175
55.6291
Arkansas
0.755
1.175
55.6291
Massachusetts
0.755
1.175
55.6291
Minnesota
0.755
1.175
55.6291
Nebraska
0.755
1.175
55.6291
Missouri
0.755
1.175
55.6291
Michigan
0.755
1.175
55.6291
West Virginia
0.755
1.175
55.6291
Texas
0.755
1.175
55.6291
South Dakota
0.755
1.175
55.6291
Idaho
1.45
1.95
34.4828
Utah
1.36
1.78
30.8824
Arizona
1.36
1.78
30.8824
Colorado
1.36
1.78
30.8824
South Carolina
1.28
1.66
29.6875
Georgia
1.175
1.45
23.4043
North Carolina
1.175
1.45
23.4043
Maine
1.175
1.45
23.4043
Oregon
1.36
1.66
22.0588
Nevada
1.36
1.66
22.0588
Montana
1.28
1.55
21.0938
Rhode Island
1.28
1.55
21.0938
New Hampshire
1.175
1.36
15.7447
New Jersey
1.175
1.36
15.7447
Tennessee
1.175
1.36
15.7447
Virginia
1.36
1.55
13.9706
Vermont
1.175
1.28
8.93617
Maryland
1.66
1.78
7.22892
Florida
1.55
1.66
7.09677
Alaska
1.28
1.36
6.25
District of Columbia
0.755
0.755
0
Connecticut
0.755
0.755
0
Hawaii
1.95
1.95
0
Illinois
0.755
0.755
0
North Dakota
0.755
0.755
0
Kansas
0.755
0.755
0
New Mexico
1.45
1.45
0
New York
0.755
0.755
0
Ohio
0.755
0.755
0
Pennsylvania
0.755
0.755
0
Washington
1.45
1.45
0
California
1.66
1.55
-6.62651
Delaware’s 105% jump stands out first. The state has pulled in corporate headquarters for decades, and those companies bring executives and professionals who buy expensive homes with big mortgages. Property values climbed alongside that corporate influx, pushing debt loads way up even as incomes rose.
Wyoming’s 92% increase ties directly to energy. When oil and gas prices spike, workers and companies borrow heavily for homes, vehicles, and equipment. But when commodity prices drop, incomes don’t always hold steady while the debt payments keep coming. That volatility shows up in the numbers.
Mississippi went up 80%, starting from a lower baseline than most states. Infrastructure projects and economic development efforts over the past two decades seem to have opened up borrowing opportunities, though it’s not clear yet whether household incomes can support those debt levels long-term.
New York and Connecticut didn’t move at all. Both states have large financial services sectors that weathered the various economic storms of the past 25 years better than industries in other regions.
California dropped 6.6%, which surprises people who only hear about Bay Area housing prices. Tech company salaries in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and other metros have grown even faster than the famously expensive real estate, bringing the overall ratio down despite the housing market chaos.
Hawaii sat at 1.95 in both 1999 and 2025. The cost of living on the islands has always been high, and that constant hasn’t changed.
