The most distressed county in every state
Every state has a county carrying the most household financial distress within its borders. This is that county for all 51 jurisdictions, scored on the County Distress Index — a 0 to 100 composite of delinquency, default and legal, debt burden, labor, and safety-net measures. Higher scores mean more distress.
How to read this
Rank is the county's position among all 3,144 U.S. counties, most distressed first, shown for the 100 most and 100 least distressed counties; in between, ranks move between updates, so the score says where a county stands. A county can top its own state while sitting well down the national list — several states have no county in the national top 100. Holmes County, Mississippi carries the highest score of any state's worst county, at 100, 1st nationally. Counties with identical composite scores share a rank, marked T- for tied; a state whose top two counties tie shows one of them, marked (tied).
The score is the share of U.S. counties a county is more distressed than. Each input is converted to a distress-oriented percentile across the county cross-section, averaged within its domain, then averaged across the five equal-weighted domains, and that average is ranked against every county. Sort any column to reorder the table.
More distress rankings
Two more views of household distress, each from its own source. See bankruptcy filing rates by county from Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts data, and where the job market is strong and the bills go unpaid. The full national top 100 ranks every county.