Tennessee reaches lowest number of distressed counties. Here's what counties remain.

Only eight of Tennessee’s 95 counties remain economically “distressed” — the fewest with that designation since researchers began tracking the data, according to new analysis by the Appalachian Regional Commission.

Counties are considered distressed based on their three-year average unemployment rate, per-capita market income, and county poverty rate. Since last year, Grundy and Morgan counties moved out of the distressed designation.

The eight remaining distressed counties are Lake, Hardeman, Perry, Clay, Bledsoe, Scott, Hancock, and Cocke.

Gov. Bill Lee announced the progress during a national forum on choice lanes held by the Tennessee Department of Transportation at Nissan Stadium on Tuesday.

“What happens in rural Tennessee strengthens what happens right here in urban Tennessee,” Lee said at the event. “We started with 15 economically distressed counties, today we have eight — and we will continue to work.”

Of Tennessee’s 95 counties, 27 are classified as “at-risk,” and 52 are classified as “transitional.” Williamson County is the only in the state to have reached standards of economic “attainment.” Davidson, Wilson, Cheatham, Sumner, Fayette, Moore, and Knox Counties are designated “competitive.”

During his first term, Lee prioritized economic acceleration in the state’s economically struggling rural counties, proposing hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding for in-school job training and technical education programs. His first executive order directed state agencies to review how they are serving rural communities. At the time, the governor's office declined to release those agency recommendations, citing deliberative process in withholding them from The Tennessean.

The Department of Economic and Community Development has also secured more than $16 billion in capital investments, and recruited 33,000 job commitments in rural counties since 2019, according to a department press release.

“In 2019, we began an administration-wide mission to expand opportunity for Tennesseans in rural areas, and our strategic workforce and infrastructure investments have resulted in an historic reduction of our state’s distressed counties,” Lee said in a statement.

In an effort to train a workforce to support new economic opportunities, lawmakers have also approved more than $200 million to improve Tennessee’s Colleges of Applied Technology in the past four years, and $500 million to expand career and technical education programs at middle and high schools throughout the state.

Alongside federal entities, the state has supported $447 million in funding to expand broadband access in rural areas.

“What happens in rural Tennessee matters to all of Tennessee,” Lee said. “As Tennessee experiences unprecedented economic growth and job creation, we’ll continue our work to prioritize rural communities so that Tennesseans in every county can thrive.”

Reach Vivian Jones at vjones@tennessean.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee reaches lowest number of distressed counties