Distressed America

Over 50 million Americans now live in economically distressed communities. The Economic Innovation Group (EIG) has evaluated the economic prosperity of neighborhoods across the United States and has found that around 1 in 6 Americans live in areas of economic distress.

You can explore the EIG's data for yourself on the Distressed Communities Index interactive map. The map allows you to explore the data at zip code level. If you click on a zip code area on the map you can view the area's 'Distress Score' and 'Distress Rank'. You can also view a number of other economic performance indicators, such as the poverty rate and the number of adults in employment.

Zip code areas on the map are colored to indicate their Distress Score. The map shows that there is a large concentration of distressed communities in Southern states and Rust Belt cities. According to the EIG "Texas contains the largest number of people in distressed zip codes and Mississippi has the largest share of its population in distress".