It’s two days before Christmas, time for a little holiday cheer. It’s time to dwell for the moment – longer if you dare – on how well we have it here in our little corner of Tennessee.
Thanks to recent information from The Sycamore Institute, based on the United States Census Bureau’s 2013-2017 American Community Survey five-year estimates, we can put our relative fortune into perspective. And when we say in perspective, we mean in comparison to the other 94 Volunteer State counties.
After all, when it comes to categories such as median household income and educational attainment, we’d like them to be higher for everyone. And when it concerns the number of people living in poverty and the number of Tennesseans without health insurance, we’d like them to be lower for everyone.
The median income of Hamilton County residents – where half are above and half are below – is $50,273, above the statewide median of $48,708. The $50,000 mark is one only 16 other counties have crossed. Though we’re nowhere near the state’s richest county, Williamson, with a median household income of $103,543, we are wealthier than 78 other counties in the state. Hancock County, in rural Northeast Tennessee on the Kentucky border, has the lowest household income ($29,619).
Though 14.5 percent of Hamilton County residents live in poverty, only 17 counties have a lower rate than Hamilton, which also is below the state median of 16.7 percent. The state ranges from 4.6 percent living in poverty in Williamson County, a bedroom community of Nashville, to 29.9 percent in Lake County, a rural county in Northwest Tennessee on the Missouri border.