Vermont County Distress Index
Financial distress scores for all 14 counties in Vermont, scored 0–100 across five domains. A county's score is the share of U.S. counties it is more distressed than; the average Vermont county scores 19.4.
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
Vermont Snapshot
Vermont County Map
Essex County is the most distressed of Vermont's 14 counties
County Distress Index score for Vermont's 14 counties, from green (least distressed, 0–29) to red (most distressed, 80–100). Data from 2024 to Aug 2026.
Loading the county map…
The county map could not be loaded. Every county is in the lists on this page.
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.
Most & Least Distressed
Most Distressed
Least Distressed
Score Distribution
How Vermont's 14 county scores are distributed across the 0–100 scale.
All Vermont Counties
14 counties ranked by distress score. Click column headers to sort.
| State Rank | Nat'l Rank | County | Score | Score Label | Primary Driver |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | — | Essex County | 36 | low-moderate county distress | Labor |
| 2 | — | Bennington County | 35 | low-moderate county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 3 | — | Orleans County | 33 | low-moderate county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 4 | — | Rutland County | 29 | low county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 5 | — | Franklin County | 22 | low county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 6 | — | Windham County | 20 | low county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 7 | — | Caledonia County | 20 | low county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 8 | — | Grand Isle County | 18 | very low county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 9 | — | Windsor County | 15 | very low county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 10 | — | Orange County | 12 | very low county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 11 | — | Addison County | 7 | exceptionally low county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 12 | — | Chittenden County | 7 | exceptionally low county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 13 | — | Washington County | 6 | exceptionally low county distress | Debt Burden (housing basis) |
| 14 | — | Lamoille County | 5 | exceptionally 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.