Some good news about people’s finances in Newark. The personal finance website WalletHub puts Newark in the top 10 cities in the country for the biggest credit score increase in 2023.
“The residents have shown some better debt management practices,” said WalletHub analyst Cassandra Happe, “specifically when we looked at the people with accounts in distress from Q4 of 2022 to Q4 of 2023, there was a decrease in the share of people with accounts in distress of almost 25%.”
But she said there is still room to go on the upside.
“Newark saw a really great increase in their average credit score, but their average credit score is still quite low when you compare it to the average for New Jersey as a whole,” she said. “New Jersey’s average credit score is 732.”
Newark’s score was 587, not quite up to the level where it’s considered fair or good, but Happe said things are looking better.
“Since they have seen an improvement in the past year, I think that’s an indication that Newark’s on the upswing, and as long as they continue to make improvements on their overall debt and maintain a positive payment history, they’re on the right track,” she said.