Rank
617of 3,144
Jefferson, Tennessee
Score 6.85 / 10· population 57,838
Jefferson County lies within a half-hour drive of Knoxville and has Douglas and Cherokee Lakes; Dandridge is the seat, and Jefferson City, with Carson-Newman University, has the most people. Homeowners paid property tax of about 0.40% of home value in 2024, against 0.52% across Tennessee and 0.83% nationally. Of employed residents, 12.1% worked for a government in 2020-2024, compared with 13.7% statewide.
Sources
- Jefferson County is within a half hour drive of Knoxville visitjeffersoncountytn.com
- Jefferson County has Douglas and Cherokee Lakes visitjeffersoncountytn.com
- Dandridge is the county seat visitjeffersoncountytn.com
- Jefferson City has the largest population of the county's municipalities and has Carson-Newman University visitjeffersoncountytn.com
- Jefferson County's effective property tax rate was 0.40% in 2024 (Tax Foundation / ACS 2024 5-year), against a Tennessee average of 0.52% and a US average of 0.83% propertytaxexplorer.com
- ACS 2024 5-year (2020-2024), table B24080: 3,295 of 27,177 employed Jefferson County residents (12.1%) were local, state or federal government workers api.censusreporter.org
- ACS 2024 5-year (2020-2024), table B24080: 459,590 of 3,362,616 employed Tennessee residents (13.7%) were government workers api.censusreporter.org
v4 — beta, 30 October 2026, sourced values
Election 2026 updates
News that could move a factor in this ranking. The scores do not change until the data behind them does.
Eleven factors
Government behavior
- Fraser Institute state ranking (state)8.3
- 2A (state)10.0
- GOP + LP vote for President8.2
- Sales tax1.1
- Property tax8.0
Environment
- Air quality5.9
- Floods / hurricanes4.3
Private behavior
- Homicide rate8.3
- Life expectancy3.2
- Government employees9.0
- Single-parent households4.2