“It is as if one may not be clean”

Abstract While the political deregulation of credit drives growing levels of household debt, studies show a simultaneous political passivity in reinventing measures able to prevent and remedy increasing struggles with debt in Denmark. This is surprising as Denmark is recognized for its generous welfare state, historically compensating citizens suffering market-related problems. Inspired by articles conceiving consumer bankruptcy procedures as a rite of passage, the article proposes to widen the ritualistic vista to the more common and pervasive state-directed debt remedy of debt counseling. Debt remedial rituals are shown to suffer from a de-emphasis of the principle of universal welfare protection that render them unable to deliver many lower- and working-class people from chronic debt struggles and from the accompanying state of moral crisis.