Nearly one-third of American consumers have delinquent debt and in some states and counties the share of people with overdue bills is even higher, according to estimates a think tank released on Tuesday that are based on information pulled from millions of credit records.

Nationwide, 31% of people with credit bureau records had debt in collections last year, according to the 2018 figures, which were published by the Urban Institute. The median amount of that debt was $1,639. "The share of consumers with financial distress, despite the fact it's going down since the Great Recession, is still quite high," said Breno Braga, a researcher who worked on the project.

Braga noted that 16% of consumers last year had medical debt in collections based on the analysis. "It's going down, but not going down fast enough," he added, referring to the level overdue medical debt.