City rankings

Lowest Unemployment in Tennessee

Clinton ranks #1 in Tennessee for lowest unemployment at 1.4%.

This ranking orders all 50 qualifying Tennessee cities by unemployment rate, computed from the named federal field or time-series described below. It is one of 9 transparent ranking lenses Areazine publishes for Tennessee, each answering one direct question from official data. Compare Clinton's standing against every other Tennessee city ranked below.

Data updated 2026-08-21

50
Cities ranked
1.4%
#1 Clinton
6.7%
Lowest, Bristol

What this Tennessee ranking shows

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates, the CDC PLACES population-level health analysis, and the CMS Hospital Compare quality data, Areazine ranks U.S. cities across more than 19,000 incorporated places, census-designated places, and consolidated city-county governments. State-level city rankings combine these federal datasets to produce intra-state comparisons across demographics, economics, health outcomes, and hospital quality.

Clinton leads 50 Tennessee cities at 1.4%, while Bristol sits at the bottom with 6.7% - a total spread of 5.3% on unemployment rate. The top 5 occupy 15% of that range, indicating a tightly-clustered top tier, the leading cities are nearly indistinguishable on this metric.

The median Tennessee city in this list sits at 4%, 2.6% behind Clinton. See our methodology for ranking construction, data vintage, refresh cadence, and the federal upstream tables we join, and triangulate via the 8 other Tennessee rankings below, cities that lead on multiple lenses are the most robust signals.

Top 5 - Lowest Unemployment

Top 5 Tennessee cities ranked by unemployment rate
Rank City unemployment rate Population
#1 Clinton 1.4% 10K
#2 Collegedale 1.6% 11K
#3 Spring Hill 2.1% 36K
#4 Franklin 2.2% 73K
#5 La Vergne 2.2% 35K

Does unemployment rate track with city size?

Lowest Unemployment vs. population, top 25 ranked cities

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (population), unemployment rate per methodology 2×2 strategic matrix plotting 25 entities by Population (X) and unemployment rate (Y), with a crosshair dividing the plot into four quadrants. Large & highSmall & highLarge & lowSmall & low 020,00040,00060,00080,000 1234 Population unemployment rate
Source: U.S. Census Bureau (population), unemployment rate per methodology

Lowest Unemployment 50

1 Clinton
1.4%
2 Collegedale
1.6%
3 Spring Hill
2.1%
4 Franklin
2.2%
5 La Vergne
2.2%
6 Manchester
2.2%
7 Paris
2.2%
8 Farragut
2.3%
9 Lebanon
2.4%
10 Brentwood
2.6%
11 Columbia
2.6%
12 Lakeland
2.8%
13 Maryville
2.9%
14 White House
2.9%
15 Seymour
3%
16 Gallatin
3.1%
17 Germantown
3.2%
18 Tullahoma
3.2%
19 Arlington
3.3%
20 Bartlett
3.4%
21 Mount Juliet
3.7%
22 Cookeville
3.8%
23 Oak Ridge
3.8%
24 Shelbyville
3.8%
25 Red Bank
3.8%
26 Collierville
4%
27 Middle Valley
4%
28 Murfreesboro
4.3%
29 Hendersonville
4.3%
30 Sevierville
4.3%
31 Millington
4.3%
32 Knoxville
4.5%
33 Springfield
4.7%
34 Clarksville
4.8%
35 Dickson
4.8%
36 Kingsport
4.9%
37 Portland
4.9%
38 Smyrna
5%
39 East Ridge
5.2%
40 Union City
5.3%
41 Chattanooga
5.4%
42 Elizabethton
5.5%
43 Lewisburg
5.5%
44 Johnson City
5.6%
45 Cleveland
6%
46 Soddy-Daisy
6%
47 Goodlettsville
6.1%
48 Athens
6.2%
49 Martin
6.3%
50 Bristol
6.7%

More Tennessee Rankings 8

Wellbeing Cities in Tennessee Most Affordable Cities in Tennessee Most Expensive Cities in Tennessee Highest Income Cities in Tennessee Largest Cities in Tennessee Fastest Growing Cities in Tennessee Most Educated Cities in Tennessee Youngest Cities in Tennessee
All cities in Tennessee → Compare Clinton vs Collegedale → All comparisons →

Reading this Tennessee ranking responsibly

Single-metric rankings are useful precisely because they are honest about what they measure. A "highest income" ranking does not tell you that the top-ranked city is the best place to live in Tennessee; it tells you that, among cities of population ten thousand and above in Tennessee that have a published median household income field in the most recent American Community Survey five-year estimates, this city has the highest such value. That precise definition matters, because composite "best places" lists from real-estate marketing sites and lifestyle magazines often combine income with subjective weights on schools, walkability, and amenities, producing a score whose components are not disclosed and whose ordering is not reproducible. Areazine's editorial commitment is to keep the underlying field, source, and vintage visible so the reader can audit any rank in this list against the canonical federal record.

Cross-checking against other rankings is a useful sanity test. A city that appears in the top ten on three or more different rankings, for example, highest income, most educated, and lowest poverty, is showing a robust signal across multiple independent dimensions. A city that appears in the top ten on only one ranking and middling on the others is showing a narrower signal, often driven by a single statistical artifact (a small population pulling the per-capita measure, a recent acquisition spike inflating median home value, an outlier survey year). The other nine Tennessee rankings linked above provide that cross-check at zero extra effort.

Data Sources

Population and economic data from the Census Bureau American Community Survey (2024 5-year estimates). Health data from the CDC PLACES (2023). Ranking computations use U.S. Census Bureau reference geographies. Crime statistics, where referenced, originate from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program (also accessible via the Crime Data Explorer).

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.