Alaskans' debt falls to lowest level in a decade

The average adult in Alaska carried about $68,900 in total household debt in 2024, down roughly $1,900 in inflation-adjusted terms from the year before — a decline the Alaska Department of Labor's Economic Trends magazine described in its June issue as a decade low for the state.

That's the year-over-year trend within Alaska. Set against the national picture, the level is still high. USAFacts data shows Alaska residents owed about $7,300 more in household debt than the average American in 2024, continuing a gap that widened during and after the Great Recession.

About 73 percent of Alaska's household debt is mortgages, a much larger share than credit card, auto, or student debt — a sign the state's debt picture is shaped more by the cost and reach of homebuying than by consumer borrowing. That has implications for which households feel the squeeze. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough had the highest debt-to-income ratio in Alaska in 2024 at 3.58, meaning the average resident there owes $3.58 for every dollar of annual income. The Valdez-Cordova Census Area sits at the other end of the spectrum with one of the lowest ratios in the state.

The Alaska decline also runs counter to national trends. Total U.S. household mortgage balances reached about $13.19 trillion at the end of March 2026, and consumer credit outstanding grew at a 3.2 percent annual rate in the first quarter, according to Federal Reserve data. Higher mortgage rates — averaging 6.71 percent for a 30-year fixed loan in late May — are widely believed to be slowing new mortgage origination, which could be part of what's pulling Alaska's per-person average down even as total U.S. debt continues to rise.

Other contributors aren't captured in the USAFacts figures alone. Alaska's population trend, the size of recent Permanent Fund Dividend payments, and the state's cost-of-living and wage shifts all interact with how much debt the average resident carries. The Economic Trends debt piece appears in the magazine's June issue, alongside a separate article on modernizing the state's unemployment insurance system. Economic Trends is published monthly by the department's Research and Analysis Section.