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You know that tight feeling in your chest when you start a new job? That’s stress.
And there are certain places in Michigan that have more to stress out about then just their first day at work.
There are things like dealing with ever-longer commutes, working longer and longer hours, and just trying to find a job in the first place. But which places in Michigan take being stressed to the next level?
It turns out the good people of Detroit have earned the dubious distinction of being the most stressed out place in Michigan. The city is at the top of the pack of the 10 most stressed out places in the Wolverine State:
How We Measured Stress In Michigan (Without Stressing Out)
In order to measure stress, we selected a set of six criteria that reflect its root causes for most people and used them to look at the 149 places in Michigan with a population over 5,000 according to the 2010-2014 American Community Survey:
Percentage of population with a long commute (over 30 minutes)
Unemployment Rate
Hours worked
Population density
Percentage of income spent on rent
Percentage of population without health insurance
The higher any of these are, the more stressed the people of the place are.
Our data is from the U.S. Census’ American Community Survey for 2010-2014.
We ranked each place from 1 to 149 (with one being the most stressed side of the scale) in the six individual criteria. These ranks were then averaged into a Stress Score, the lowest of which was the most stressed out place in the Wolverine State.
Below, we’ll take a look at the standout stress stats for each top 10 most stressed places, and wrap the whole thing up with a detailed ranking of all 149 places we analyzed.
1. Detroit
Population: 695,437People With High Rent: 58.5% People With Long Commute: 36.2% People Without Insurance: 19.0%
2. Hamtramck
Population: 22,256People With High Rent: 49.7% People With Long Commute: 40.5% People Without Insurance: 21.4%
3. Highland Park
Population: 10,951People With High Rent: 57.6% People With Long Commute: 39.3% People Without Insurance: 15.4%
4. Hazel Park
Population: 16,532People With High Rent: 60.6% People With Long Commute: 25.7% People Without Insurance: 21.0%
5. Inkster
Population: 25,056People With High Rent: 61.7% People With Long Commute: 35.6% People Without Insurance: 14.3%
6. River Rouge
Population: 7,761People With High Rent: 51.0% People With Long Commute: 39.9% People Without Insurance: 16.8%
7. Mount Clemens
Population: 16,345People With High Rent: 52.3% People With Long Commute: 36.4% People Without Insurance: 15.0%
8. Oak Park
Population: 29,622People With High Rent: 53.8% People With Long Commute: 31.6% People Without Insurance: 17.2%
9. Eastpointe
Population: 32,526People With High Rent: 56.1% People With Long Commute: 34.5% People Without Insurance: 12.4%
10. Dearborn Heights
Population: 57,063People With High Rent: 54.3% People With Long Commute: 29.9% People Without Insurance: 14.8%
Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job.
His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news.
More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.