Hardest Places to Live in the US by County

Annie Lowrey writes in the Times Magazine about the troubles of Clay County, Ky., which by several measures is the hardest place in America to live.  The Times came to this conclusion by looking at six data points for each county in the United States: education (percentage of residents with at least a bachelor’s degree), median household income, unemployment rate, disability rate, life expectancy and obesity. They then averaged each county’s relative rank in these categories to create an overall ranking.

The 10 lowest counties in the country, by this ranking, include a cluster of six in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky (Breathitt, Clay, Jackson, Lee, Leslie and Magoffin), along with four others in various parts of the rural South: Humphreys County, Miss.; East Carroll Parish, La.; Jefferson County, Ga.; and Lee County, Ark.

Below is a static map from their webpage which shows every county in the US and whether they are doing better or doing worse than the national average.

Click to Enlarge

And for the record, here are the results for Herkimer and Oneida Counties.