Rank

1156of 3,144

Unicoi, Tennessee

Score 6.51 / 10· population 17,756

Unicoi County sits in the mountains of upper East Tennessee and is part of the Johnson City metro area. In 2020-2024, 18% of its working residents held government jobs, against 13.7% statewide, and the school system's 400 staff trail only the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Erwin, at about 990. The combined sales tax is 9.75%, and in 2020 the air carried 5.7 micrograms of fine particles per cubic meter on an average day, less than Tennessee's 7.0.

Sources
  • Unicoi County is located in the mountains of upper East Tennessee tennesseeencyclopedia.net
  • Unicoi County's metro area is Johnson City, TN tnecd.com
  • ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates (table B24080): in Unicoi County 1,401 of 7,787 employed civilians 16 and over are local, state or federal government workers (18.0%); in Tennessee 459,590 of 3,362,616 (13.7%) api.censusreporter.org
  • Unicoi County top employers: Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc. (Erwin) est. 990 employees; Unicoi County Board of Education (Erwin) est. 400, the next largest tnecd.com
  • County Health Rankings 2025 release: average daily fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is 5.7 micrograms per cubic meter in Unicoi County and 7.0 in Tennessee countyhealthrankings.org
  • The 2025 County Health Rankings release used data from 2020 for the particulate matter measure (source: Environmental Public Health Tracking Network) countyhealthrankings.org
  • Unicoi County: state sales tax rate 7.00% plus county sales tax rate 2.75% tnecd.com

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 President8.1
  4. Sales tax1.1
  5. Property tax7.6

Environment

  1. Air quality6.6
  2. Floods / hurricanes6.6

Private behavior

  1. Homicide rate8.7
  2. Life expectancy2.4
  3. Government employees1.7
  4. Single-parent households2.3

Neighbors