America’s Most Stressed City

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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America’s Most Stressed City

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Stress levels can be measured in several ways. Among them are the effects of where people live. A new study shows that this includes poverty levels, unemployment, crime rates, travel time to work and cost of living. Based on these factors, Detroit is the most stressed city in America. (20 signs you are probably drinking too much coffee.)
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The new research is from Charlotte’s Web, a cannabidiol wellness products provider. It is based on data from the country’s 100 largest cities based on population. The eight metrics used included poverty, people without insurance, crime rates, unemployment rates, travel time to work, rent-to-income ratios, fitness scores and cost of living. These were taken together to create a “total index score.”
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The authors pointed out that almost no one avoids stress completely: “According to the American Psychological Association, 76% of adults in the U.S. have reported experiencing health effects due to stress in the prior month.”

Detroit had a score of 519.29. The city has lost half its population since 1950, primarily because automakers located many of their offices and plants elsewhere. Poverty levels are above 30%. Despite efforts to revive the city, much of it is still in ruins, with thousands of abandoned houses. Detroit was given an F grade. New York City was the only other city to receive a grade this low.
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The most recent Census Bureau data shows that Detroit’s population dropped again recently. The information angered local politicians, who believed those census figures were wrong. According to The Detroit News, “Mayor Mike Duggan is disputing Census figures showing Detroit lost nearly 8000 people from 2021 to 2022.” Even if the data for that short period is flawed, the long-term trend is very clear.
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These are the 20 most stressed cities in America:

City Score Grade
Detroit 519.29 F
New York 509.80 F
Memphis 489.63 D−
Newark 484.74 D−
Houston 467.30 D
Miami 464.52 D
Los Angeles 448.54 D+
Dallas 447.98 D+
New Orleans 442.54 D+
Cleveland 440.77 D+
Oakland 436.92 C−
Jersey City 434.75 C−
Fresno 432.17 C−
Philadelphia 430.47 C−
Tulsa 430.16 C−
Bakersfield 427.13 C−
Stockton 425.37 C−
Baltimore 425.26 C−
Kansas City 424.32 C−
Las Vegas 424.14 C−
Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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