How the Credit Need Index is built

The Credit Need Index is a transparent composite score for each of Sweden's 290 municipalities. Every input comes from open, official Swedish data sources. The full pipeline — extraction, normalisation, weighting — is documented below.

The formula

index = 0.30 * debt_share_norm
      + 0.25 * (100 - income_norm)
      + 0.20 * rental_share_norm
      + 0.25 * unemployment_norm

Each input is normalised to a 0–100 scale using realistic min/max bounds observed across Swedish municipalities. The income signal is inverted — higher income reduces the index.

Data sources

• Kronofogden — Antal personer med skuld

  Monthly30%

  Number of individuals registered with debt at the Swedish Enforcement Authority, expressed as a share of municipal population. Loaded from Kronofogden's open data CSV.

• SCB PxWeb HE0110 — Disposable income

  Annual (5-year window)25% (inverted)

  Disposable income per consumption unit, municipality-level. Higher income lowers the index.

• SCB PxWeb BO0104 — Housing stock

  Annual20%

  Share of dwellings that are rentals (hyresrätt) of total housing stock. Used as a weak proxy for liquidity buffer.

• Arbetsförmedlingen — Open unemployment

  Monthly25%

  Open unemployment rate per municipality, latest month.

Refresh cadence

The pipeline runs on the first of every month via Lovable Cloud cron. Snapshots are stored so 5-year trends and 12-month deltas can be computed.

Limitations

The index is an aggregate signal at municipal level. It does not assess any individual person and is not a credit check. Small municipalities can swing more between updates. Some signals lag (annual SCB releases) while others are monthly.