Delaware County Distress Index
Financial distress scores for all 3 counties in Delaware, scored 0–100 across five domains. A county's score is the share of U.S. counties it is more distressed than; the average Delaware county scores 58.4. 1 county scores high, very high, or extreme.
Data: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Urban Institute, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts | Scores as of Aug 2026
Delaware Snapshot
Delaware County Map
Kent County is the most distressed of Delaware's 3 counties
County Distress Index score for Delaware's 3 counties, from green (least distressed, 0–29) to red (most distressed, 80–100). Data from 2024 to Aug 2026.
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County Distress Index score · data from 2024 to Aug 2026
Point to or tap a county for its rank and score. Click it, or tap it twice, to open its page.
Score Distribution
How Delaware's 3 county scores are distributed across the 0–100 scale.
All Delaware Counties
3 counties ranked by distress score. Click column headers to sort.
| State Rank | Nat'l Rank | County | Score | Score Label | Primary Driver |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | — | Kent County | 74 | high county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 2 | — | New Castle County | 58 | moderate county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 3 | — | Sussex County | 41 | moderate-low county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
How County Scores Work
Each county is scored 0–100 using five equal-weighted domains. Each domain averages its member indicators' county ranks, the domains are averaged, and that average is ranked against every U.S. county. So a county's score is the share of U.S. counties it is more distressed than. National ranks are shown only for the 100 most and 100 least distressed counties, because ranks in between move between updates. Counties with identical composite scores share a rank, marked T- for tied.
Urban Institute data: Breno Braga, Signe-Mary McKernan, Samantha Atherton, and Kassandra Martinchek, "Debt in America," last updated November 20, 2025, https://datacatalog.urban.org/dataset/debt-america-2025. Licensed under ODC-By 1.0. The County Distress Index is American Default Research's own calculation; the Urban Institute does not produce or endorse it.