NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Tennessee is closing in on a major economic milestone by working to reduce the number of economically “distressed” counties to 10 or fewer by the end of this year.
Every year, the Appalachian Regional Commission ranks every county in the country by their unemployment rate, per capita income and poverty rate. The bottom 10% of those counties are considered “distressed.”
Tennessee currently has 11 distressed counties: Bledsoe, Clay, Cocke, Grundy, Hancock, Hardeman, Haywood, Lake, Perry, Pickett, and Scott. The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (EDC) set a goal to reduce that number to 10 by 2025…