Is This Really the Most Miserable City in Idaho?
In 2019, Business Insider came up with a mathematical formula to determine the 50 most miserable cities in the United States.
Using publically available US Census data, they determined that Gary, Indiana was the most miserable city in the entire nation. California was the most miserable state with 10 cities on the list.
They looked at six different data points for their equation: population change, percentage of people in the civilian workforce, median household income, percentage of residents without healthcare, commute times and the number of people living in poverty.
Not a single city in Idaho appeared on the list, but we were curious how things would shake out if we ran Idaho's 33 biggest cities through the same formula. We applied their formula and weights to the Census Bureau's latest American Community Survey 5-Year estimates for 2016-2020.
After running the numbers, this is how things played out. It's not personal. It's just math.
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