Tennessee is one of the 10 best states in America for business. It’s also the worst state for quality of life, according to CNBC.
Both rankings came from the same 2026 study.
CNBC placed Tennessee 9th overall for business but 50th for quality of life, awarding the state just 64 out of 290 possible points in that category.
WalletHub delivered another uncomfortable comparison in August.
Tennessee ranked 40th out of 50 states in its 2026 Best States to Live In study. Yet the same report ranked the Volunteer State 7th nationally for affordability.
But there’s something those national rankings don’t reveal.
According to a separate 2026 study, approximately 1.19 million Tennessee households struggle to afford basic necessities.
That’s roughly four out of every 10 households in a state considered one of America’s most affordable.
And the explanation becomes even more revealing when you look at what it actually costs to live in different parts of Tennessee.
Tennessee Ranks 7th for Affordability, but 41% of Households Struggle
WalletHub’s affordability ranking sounds encouraging.
Tennessee finished ahead of 43 other states in a category measuring housing affordability, living costs, property taxes, household income and homeownership.
But a different study offers a closer look at what Tennessee families are experiencing.
The 2026 United For ALICE Tennessee report, using data from 2024, found that 1,191,677 households were unable to afford the study’s basic household budget.
That includes two groups.
Approximately 395,081 households, or 14%, were living below the federal poverty level.
Another 796,596 households, nearly 28%, earned more than the official poverty threshold but still couldn’t afford the basic cost of living.
Researchers call this second group ALICE, short for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.
These households may have working adults bringing home paychecks. But their income isn’t enough to cover the estimated cost of housing, groceries, transportation, health care, child care and other necessities.
The distinction matters because the federal poverty line doesn’t necessarily reflect what a household needs to cover ordinary expenses.
In 2024, for example, the report estimated that a single adult in Tennessee needed $30,240 annually for its basic survival budget.
The federal poverty guideline for one person was $15,060.
That’s almost twice as much.
These aren’t estimates of what someone needs for a luxurious lifestyle. The ALICE survival budget doesn’t include saving for retirement or building an emergency fund.
There’s also an important national comparison.
Approximately 41% of households nationwide were below the ALICE Threshold in 2024, the same rounded percentage reported for Tennessee.
So these figures don’t establish that Tennessee families are uniquely worse off.
They reveal something more useful about the state’s affordability ranking.
Being cheaper than most other states doesn’t mean living here is affordable for everyone.
And where you live within Tennessee can make a substantial difference.
Living in Nashville Can Require Nearly $13,000 More Than Northeast Tennessee
A single adult living in Nashville faces a different household budget than someone living in Kingsport or Bristol.
The MIT Living Wage Calculator puts actual numbers to that difference.
Its 2026 estimates show how much a single adult with no children would need to earn before taxes to cover basic expenses while working full-time.
In Davidson County, the estimated annual income requirement is $51,243.
In Knox County, it’s $47,235.
And in Sullivan County, home to Kingsport and part of Bristol, it’s $38,365.
That creates a $12,878 annual difference between Davidson and Sullivan counties, or approximately 34%.
That’s more than $1,000 a month in required income for the same household type.
But the expense breakdown reveals something even more interesting.
MIT estimates annual housing expenses for one adult at $18,507 in Davidson County, compared with $9,109 in Sullivan County.
That’s a difference of $9,398 a year.
Housing alone accounts for an amount equivalent to nearly three-quarters of the difference between the two counties’ estimated income requirements.
Transportation tells a different story.
MIT estimates annual transportation expenses at $8,507 in Davidson County and $8,660 in Sullivan County.
Despite Sullivan County’s much lower housing costs, its estimated transportation expenses are actually $153 higher.
That matters for anyone assuming a lower-cost community automatically means dramatically lower expenses across the board.
Cheaper housing can make a significant difference. But transportation, medical expenses, food and other costs still have to be considered.
These are modeled costs, not average salaries or guarantees of what an individual household will spend.
They’re also different from SmartAsset’s previously reported comfortable-living estimates, which use a 50/30/20 budget that includes discretionary spending and savings.
MIT’s estimates focus on meeting basic needs.
The distinction helps explain why one statewide affordability ranking can’t accurately describe what residents in Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis or smaller Tennessee communities are experiencing.
The Housing Affordability Problem Isn’t Just in Nashville
Nashville’s housing prices receive plenty of attention.
But another Tennessee study found that housing-cost pressures extend far beyond the state’s largest metropolitan areas.
In March 2026, the nonprofit research organization ThinkTennessee released its updated State of Our Counties dashboard, examining economic conditions across all 95 counties.
One finding stood out.
An average of 44.3% of renters across Tennessee counties spent at least 30% of their household income on housing.
That 30% threshold is commonly used to identify households considered housing-cost burdened.
For someone earning $3,000 a month, spending $900 or more on housing reaches that threshold.
And the problem wasn’t confined to urban counties.
ThinkTennessee found substantial housing-cost burdens in both rural and urban communities.
There’s a technical distinction worth keeping in mind: the 44.3% figure is an average of county-level renter measures, not necessarily the percentage of all Tennessee renters combined.
Still, it challenges the assumption that housing affordability is primarily a Nashville problem.
The same dashboard also documented some positive movement.
Homeownership rates increased in 66 of Tennessee’s 95 counties when researchers compared the 2016–2020 and 2020–2024 American Community Survey periods.
That doesn’t eliminate the pressure facing renters.
It shows why housing conditions can’t be reduced to one statewide trend.
Some Tennessee communities are seeing gains in homeownership while substantial shares of renters continue spending a large portion of their income just to remain housed.
Why Tennessee’s Quality-of-Life Rankings Are So Low
Affordability is only one part of what national ranking organizations measure.
WalletHub evaluated states across 51 indicators divided into five equally weighted categories.
Tennessee finished 7th for affordability, but its performance dropped sharply elsewhere.
The state ranked 31st for economy, 35th for quality of life, 37th for safety and 43rd for education and health.
Each category contributes 20% to WalletHub’s overall score.
That means Tennessee’s strong affordability performance cannot automatically compensate for weaker results in education, health and safety.
CNBC uses a different scoring system.
Its quality-of-life assessment considers crime, health care, child care, environmental conditions, worker protections and state laws affecting individual rights.
That broader definition helps explain why Tennessee finished last for quality of life while still ranking ninth for business competitiveness.
The business ranking reflects a different side of Tennessee’s economy.
Major companies continue making significant investments in the state, including a recently announced $6.6 billion industrial project, the largest single private corporate investment announced in Tennessee history.
That’s encouraging news for economic development.
But attracting billions in business investment doesn’t automatically mean every Tennessee household can comfortably afford its monthly expenses.
Public safety is another concern across multiple studies.
In the 2026 U.S. News & World Report Best States rankings, Tennessee finished 46th for public safety.
Yet U.S. News placed Tennessee 25th overall.
These differences aren’t necessarily contradictions. Each organization selects different measures and assigns them different weights.
And statewide scores don’t tell the whole story about local conditions.
Consider education.
WalletHub ranked Tennessee 43rd for education and health combined.
But the Tennessee Department of Education reported in July that 86 school districts improved their combined subject proficiency rates between the 2024–25 and 2025–26 school years.
Another 118 districts improved compared with 2023–24.
Williamson County Schools reported a 73.9% proficiency rate across all subjects in 2025–26, while Collierville Schools reached 73.6%.
Those improvements don’t invalidate Tennessee’s national ranking. The studies measure different aspects of education and health.
But they demonstrate why a struggling statewide ranking doesn’t mean every school district is moving in the wrong direction.
The same distinction matters when examining health care and public safety.
Conditions in one Tennessee county may look considerably different from those in another.
And those local differences are part of what makes it difficult to describe the entire state with a single ranking, something that also comes through in the things Tennesseans told us they wish everyone knew about their state.
Fortunately, residents don’t have to rely entirely on statewide rankings to find out what’s happening closer to home.
How to See What’s Really Happening in Your Tennessee County
National studies can identify problems, but Tennessee has public resources that allow residents to examine conditions much closer to home.
For health care and community health, ExploreTNhealth provides information by county and ZIP code.
The platform, developed through a partnership involving the Tennessee Hospital Association, was refreshed in September 2026.
Residents can compare local health indicators and explore differences between communities, rather than relying on a single statewide health ranking.
For public safety, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s CrimeInsight platform provides reported crime information.
Users can select a jurisdiction, year and type of crime to examine what’s been reported in their area.
Reported incidents don’t automatically tell you an individual’s risk, but the information provides considerably more local detail than Tennessee’s national safety ranking.
Parents and residents interested in schools can also use the Tennessee State Report Card.
It includes school and district performance information, such as student achievement, academic growth and graduation rates, with tools for comparing schools.
For an even broader comparison, ThinkTennessee’s State of Our Counties dashboard allows users to examine housing, economic opportunity, education and health indicators across all 95 counties.
Together, these resources provide a way to investigate the specific issues that influence quality of life where you actually live.
The Real Issue Isn’t Just Whether Tennessee Is Affordable
Tennessee’s national rankings tell two different stories.
For businesses, the state remains highly competitive. And compared with much of the country, its overall affordability is a genuine advantage.
But the numbers reveal where that advantage begins to break down.
Approximately 1.19 million households were below the ALICE basic-needs threshold in 2024.
A single adult’s modeled living-wage requirement varies by nearly $13,000 annually between Davidson and Sullivan counties.
And housing expenses consume a substantial share of income for renters across both urban and rural Tennessee.
Those findings say more about everyday life than a single ranking ever could.
The question isn’t simply whether Tennessee costs less than other states.
It’s whether the income people earn in their own communities is enough to cover their expenses, and whether the schools, health care and public safety around them meet their needs.
That’s the part of Tennessee’s affordability story a national ranking can’t fully explain.
I was born in Kingsport , moved away for 47 years. Industry likes that they can pay low wages. And the locals don’t see if they get better education they can demand higher wages.
When we moved back here my groceries went up 90.00 per mo.
Frankly when we came back we found that Tnn is thirty years behind other states.