For Media
Press kit, canonical citation formats, current story angles, and embed code.
American Default Research publishes the American Distress Index. The data is free, the methodology is open, and the citation format is standardized. This page exists because four different brand strings have appeared in early external citations. When you cite us, please use the canonical name on the right.
How to cite
Three-tier naming
- American Default Research
- Institutional name. Use in source lists, bibliographies, schema.org attributions, and anywhere a reader expects the publishing organization.
- American Default
- Brand name. Used for the URL (americandefault.org), social handles, and conversational references.
- American Distress Index (ADI)
- Product name. Use only when referencing the national composite score.
- County Distress Index (CDI)
- Product name. Use only when referencing the county-level composite.
Citation formats
According to American Default Research, the publisher of the American Distress Index, [your data point]. (americandefault.org)Kilburn, R. (2026). American Distress Index [Data set]. American Default Research. https://americandefault.org/methodology/Kilburn, Ross. "American Distress Index." American Default Research, 2026, americandefault.org/methodology/.Kilburn, Ross. 2026. "American Distress Index." American Default Research. https://americandefault.org/methodology/.Do not cite as
The following variants have appeared in early external citations and are all incorrect:
- American Default Index — conflates brand and product names
- American Distress Report (Q4 2025) — invented name; we publish no quarterly report under this title
- American Distress Index Inc — no Inc. suffix; American Default Research is the institutional name
- American Default Management — invented name with no relation to the project
- AmericanDefault.org Research — casual URL form used as a citation; use "American Default Research"
When unsure, use American Default Research.
Story angles
Six current angles drawn from the data. Each links to the live indicator and the full analysis. All numbers update automatically — pull a current value off the linked page rather than copying from this list.
Safety Net & Buffer has a historical lead relationship with debt stress
The research scanner finds a nine-quarter lead between household-buffer measures and bank-reported delinquency, with r=0.69 and validation against the global financial crisis. Use it as historical lag context for current buffer readings.
FHA-insured borrowers are seriously delinquent at multiples of conventional rates
FHA serious delinquency has separated from the conventional 90+ rate over the post-pandemic recovery. The headline national delinquency number blends both populations and obscures the gap. The split tracks who got priced out of homeownership before 2020 versus who held equity through it.
Subprime auto delinquency is a visible consumer-credit stress point
Auto loans were the first consumer-credit category to break post-pandemic. The 90+ delinquency rate climbed through 2024-2025 while subprime borrowers carried the highest concentration of distress.
Credit card delinquency has historically preceded charge-offs
Cross-correlation analysis (r=0.76, validated across two crises) links credit card delinquency rates with all-loan charge-off rates at a three-quarter lag. Treat it as historical context for the current credit-card reading.
The savings rate hit a multi-decade low while credit card balances reached all-time highs
A small share of households is funding consumption through credit while the rest of the economy reads strong. Aggregate spending data masks the split. ADI tracks the divergence through Safety Net & Buffer, Debt Burden, Delinquency, and Default & Legal domains.
Every U.S. county scored on a five-domain composite of household financial distress
The County Distress Index (CDI) ranks 3,144 counties across Delinquency, Default & Legal, Debt Burden, Labor, and Safety Net & Buffer. Top-100 most-distressed list is published as a journalist-grab table; per-county scorecards include APA/MLA/Chicago citation strings, an embed iframe, and a downloadable PDF.
Quarterly updates
Time-bound briefs anchored to a specific quarter, suitable for direct citation. Published under existing ADI naming.
- Q1 2026Household Distress Through the Family Lens
Family-method routing note for the retired quarterly ADI update, with the current composite method and canonical score page linked for citation.
Bulk data and machine access
Risk teams, researchers, and AI agents can query the data programmatically. The full reference and worked examples live at /for-data-users/.
- MCP server — five tools for structured queries (current ADI, county scorecard, indicator lookup, search, cross-correlations). Auth-stub-ready, rate-limited, free.
- Indicator bundles — JSON snapshots of every tracked indicator at
/data/indicator-bundles/{slug}.json. - ADI composite — historical series at
/data/indexes/adi.json. - County scorecards — per-FIPS JSON at
/data/scorecard-blobs/{fips}.json; downloadable per-county PDFs available from each scorecard page. - Top-100 ranking — sortable, filterable, with downloadable CSV at /top-100-most-distressed-counties/.
Methodology
The CDI methodology is also published as a formal working paper PDF. The ADI methodology page includes the GFC backtest, the math layer, and a full replication guide pointing at the open-source GitHub repository.
Press contact
Direct email: press@americandefault.org
Same-day response on weekdays. For interview requests, include the publication, your deadline, and the angle. For data questions, attach the page URL or indicator slug you have a question about.