Fico scoring

[Anonymous]

why do people who live in certain areas of the country have have high Fico scores than others who urban areas

[Anonymous]

The marketing of TV and ads in general push consumerism to everyone equally but not all markets can sustain the same abilities to spend.

FICO only rates your past history with using credit well or poorly.

Some areas have a poorer history of overusing credit and not paying it back on time.

[Anonymous]

Some ares of the country have better employment opportunities and higher income than others, enabling them to have better credit.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps certain areas have a greater level of default due to economic changes. Things like job loss due to loss of industry. Appalachia and coal mining come to mind.
The latest housing crash left a lot of people with underwater mortgages some areas were affected more than others.
Disasters
Any kind of social change really.
That's my best guess anyway.

[Anonymous]

I think it's important not to correlate FICO scores and income, as FICO scoring does not consider income at all. 

There are people who make $5000-$10000 per year that have 800 FICO scores and there are multi-million dollar executives that have 600 scores.  It's all about healthy credit behavior and income is not a factor with that underlying theme. 

[Anonymous]

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wrote:

I think it's important not to correlate FICO scores and income, as FICO scoring does not consider income at all. 

There are people who make $5000-$10000 per year that have 800 FICO scores and there are multi-million dollar executives that have 600 scores.  It's all about healthy credit behavior and income is not a factor with that underlying theme. 

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People aren’t saying income directly affects FICO. They are saying that people with higher incomes tend to pay their bills better than people with lower incomes or job losses. It fits what this thread is asking. And is a legitimate reason why there is differences between areas with respect to scores. It’s just a fact of life that people with higher income tend to have advantages over people who live week to week and the smallest changes can cause missed payments and defaults.

[Anonymous]

Education seems to be a major underlying reason. States with the highest average credit scores also have some of the highest levels of education. Education also affects income and job opportunities. I can imagine there's a certain cultural aspect as well. We learn from our parents then pass that knowledge to our children.

I'm in no way claiming income and education are part of scoring. But it certainly impacts someone's ability to recover from some of the social changes I listed in my prior post.

[marty56]

Not fair to compare since there are too many other non-FICO factors can affect the outcome.

[Anonymous]

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People aren’t saying income directly affects FICO. They are saying that people with higher incomes tend to pay their bills better than people with lower incomes or job losses.

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Job losses perhaps, but I don't otherwise agree with the above statement.  People tend to spend relative to their income, so when all the dust settles there really isn't much of a difference IMO.  It's the way that Mike Tyson went broke when he made $296 million.  How?  Spend $298 million.  I personally don't believe that people with higher incomes tend to pay their bills better.  Not significantly, anyway.

[Anonymous]

If you have access to Experian CreditWorks there's an interactive map that shows the average EX FICO scores for regions of the U.S.  New England and the Upper Midwest score the highest.  (If I recall the average EX score for New England is 717 and 708 for the Upper Midwest).  Scores are really low in the South and the Southwest regions with average scores that are almost 100 points lower.  I think the reason is more about culture than about education or economic opportunity.