Rank

400of 3,144

Meigs, Tennessee

Score 7.05 / 10· population 13,691

TVA lakes built in 1940 and 1942 gave Meigs County 225 miles of shoreline on the Tennessee and Hiwassee rivers, and in 2024 Census estimates, 69 percent of its workers had jobs in other counties. In Decatur, the county seat, a purchase carries 9 percent sales tax, 2 points of it local. Life expectancy from 2020 to 2022 averaged 69.1 years, 4.4 below Tennessee's 73.5.

Sources
  • TVA built Chickamauga Lake in 1940 and Watts Bar in 1942; 225 miles of shoreline were created within Meigs County on the Tennessee and Hiwassee rivers tennesseeencyclopedia.net
  • Meigs County: 69.2% of working residents worked outside their county of residence (Census Bureau 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, Table S0801) tn.gov
  • Decatur is the Meigs County seat; the local option sales tax rate (Decatur and the county) is 2.00% tnecd.com
  • The general Tennessee state sales tax rate is 7% tn.gov
  • County Health Rankings 2025: life expectancy 69.1 years in Meigs County and 73.5 in Tennessee (4.4 years apart), data years 2020-2022 countyhealthrankings.org

v4 — beta, 30 October 2026, sourced values

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Eleven factors

Government behavior

  1. Fraser Institute state ranking (state)8.3
  2. 2A (state)10.0
  3. GOP + LP vote for President8.3
  4. Sales tax1.8
  5. Property tax5.7

Environment

  1. Air quality5.7
  2. Floods / hurricanes7.2

Private behavior

  1. Homicide rate8.9
  2. Life expectancy0.3
  3. Government employees9.5
  4. Single-parent households9.7

Neighbors