This data dashboard maps county-level credit insecurity as ranked by the New York Federal Reserve Bank to US Native Lands. County-level insecurity rankings do not necessarily account for actual credit needs within reservation boundaries and, in many cases, may show inaccurate rankings depending on the percentage of off-reservation population contained within each county. In reality, similar comparisons would suggest the credit insecurity in Indian Country is much worse than the data presented here. However, considering the lack of data available for US Native Lands, we still feel that this data is valuable, as it provides an at-a-glance understanding of the discrepancy between tribal access to credit versus national figures. The data tells us that between 2007 and 2018, approximately 62% of people living on reservations had very low access to credit (“at-risk” and “insecure”) compared to 26% of the average national population. These numbers are stark evidence of the reality lived by tribal residents in the United States and the difficulties they face in accessing credit, which is crucial for growth in many ways. We will incorporate more recent years of data into this dashboard as soon as we are able.
The credit insecurity data produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York centers on the Credit Insecurity Index, a multidimensional geographic measure of access to affordable credit across the United States. This index is constructed using several factors:
The share of adults without a credit score or file (“credit invisible”).
The percentage of the population that has limited or no access to mainstream, affordable credit products.
The proportion of people relying on high-cost debt (such as payday loans or similar subprime products) and those struggling to make debt payments.
Credit utilization rates (use of more than 30% of available credit).
The share of residents with subprime credit scores and consistently delinquent payment histories.
The data is geographically granular and categorized by tiers:
Credit assured
Credit likely
Mid-tier
At-risk
Credit insecure
These tiers allow comparison at the county, city, and even census tract levels, enabling the identification of persistent regional disparities, such as the concentration of credit insecurity in the South, Appalachia, rural areas, and places with lower educational attainment and higher rental rates.
Key findings from recent nationwide analyses include:
Credit security has nationally improved overall from 2018 to 2023, meaning more people have credit scores or files and fewer are credit-constrained.
However, credit insecurity remains regionally persistent: two-thirds of counties classified as credit insecure in 2018 stayed in that tier in 2023.
Over one in ten Americans live in counties where a large share of residents rely on expensive credit and struggle with debt repayment.
Areas with high credit insecurity also tend to have greater mental distress, highlighting its impact as a social determinant of health.
The index is also used to inform policy discussions about community financial resilience, economic shocks, and public health, helping target interventions in communities most affected by limited access to fair credit.
Key issues for access to credit in Indian Country include several persistent barriers that limit Native individuals and business owners:
Prevalence of being unbanked: Many Native communities have higher rates of individuals without bank accounts or formal credit histories. This is compounded by the absence or scarcity of mainstream financial institutions on or near reservations, making it far more difficult for Native entrepreneurs and families to access conventional lending or financial services.
Low credit scores and insufficient collateral: Native businesses and residents frequently have limited or poor credit due to lower income, lack of credit-building opportunities, or historical financial exclusion. Traditional lenders often require good credit and substantial collateral, which many Native borrowers cannot provide.
Geographic and technological constraints: Remote locations and limited broadband access make it harder for many in Indian Country to connect with financial institutions, apply for credit, or benefit from digital banking services.
Inadequate access to technical assistance: Few institutions offer financial education, credit-building support, and technical help tailored to Native communities. Those that exist—like Native CDFIs—play a critical role by understanding local challenges and providing more accessible, flexible financial support.
Systemic bias and responsibility norms: Mainstream banks, guided by fiduciary responsibility, tend to avoid higher-risk loans and focus on financially stable clients, shutting out those striving to improve their situation in Native communities.
Credit insecurity data is crucial for tribal governments and Native-serving organizations for several reasons:
Evidence-based policy and targeted interventions: Accurate data on credit insecurity allows tribal leaders to understand the scope and nature of the problem—where credit access is worst, which groups are most affected, and what types of financial products are needed. This supports more effective planning and resource allocation.
Community advocacy: Reliable data provides tribes with the necessary evidence to advocate for targeted federal, state, and philanthropic support, funding, and legislative changes tailored to their unique financial realities.
Program development and impact measurement: Tribes, Native CDFIs, and other stakeholders can use this data to design programs that address credit access challenges and measure the success of their initiatives over time.
Highlighting social determinants of economic health: Credit insecurity data reveals links between financial exclusion and broader social outcomes such as health disparities, persistent poverty, and reduced economic opportunities, helping tribes address root causes holistically.
Improving access to credit in Indian Country is both a challenge and a necessity. Actionable, localized credit insecurity data can be a vital tool in advancing economic self-determination, financial inclusion, and community resilience for tribes.
While this dashboard offers valuable insights into credit insecurity for tribes, it uses county-level data for lack of a better available source of information and should therefore be treated carefully. Using county-level data as a proxy for US Native lands has limitations inherent to differences in boundary overlap between reservations and counties. Some counties overlap fully with reservations and can therefore be trusted to represent reservation demographics, but many counties overlap less than 50% with reservations. Caution should be exercised with the latter, as stark differences in population characteristics and socio-economic demographics may considerably bias the data. When considering other studies on the state of access to credit for tribes, we can safely assume that access to credit is even worse than what this county-level dashboard suggests.
We have updated our terminology from “raw data” to “source data” to better reflect the contextual nature and origins of the information we provide. This change acknowledges that all data is influenced by the context in which it is collected, and aims to promote a more inclusive and accurate understanding of the information presented. As a reminder data can also be downloaded from the dashboard itself by clicking on the download button at the bottom right corner. Format includes image, pdf, tableau workbook, and crosstab.
Tribes in the U.S. have always faced obstacles accessing data about their lands. Now, public data erasure magnifies these existing challenges.
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