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Phoenix ranked in top 50 most stressed cities in America

Posted at 2:00 PM, Jul 20, 2019
and last updated 2019-07-23 17:45:13-04

PHOENIX- A study found Phoenix to be ranked the 43rd, out of 182, most stressed cities in America.

43rd!

WalletHub conducted this study as an effort to see which cities in America coped best with stress. They compared 182 cities using 39 key metrics like average hours worked a week, job security, unemployment rate, etc.

It’s safe to say the results were stressful.

Phoenix’s total overall score was 48.89. In addition, it ranked a few other areas:

  • ‘Work Stress’ rank: 69
  • ‘Financial Stress’ rank: 64
  • ‘Family Stress’ rank: 31
  • ‘Heath & Safety stress’ rank: 46

According to The American Institute of Stress (AIS), the main causes of stress are workload (46 percent), people issues (26 percent), juggling work/ personal lives (20 percent) and lack of job security (six percent).

Looking at the research and studies that have been done on this topic really make you think about things and how relatable all the results are.

I mean, job stress in itself is a huge battle to face but its also very expensive to deal with! “Job Stress” has a price tag estimated to be over $300 billion annually from things like accidents, absenteeism, employee turnover and more, according to AIS.

Each metric used to score the cities were broken down into subcategories from the four categories above: work stress, financial stress, family stress and heath and safety stress.

Work Stress:

  • Average weekly work hours
  • Job security
  • Traffic congestion
  • Unemployment rate
  • Underemployment rate
  • Share of households where no adults work
  • Average commute time
  • Income growth
  • Job sanctification ranking

Financial Stress:

  • Median annual household income
  • Share of households behind on bills in past 12 months
  • Foreclosure rate
  • Personal-bankruptcy rate
  • Median debt per median earnings
  • Median credit score
  • Poverty rate
  • Food insecurity
  • Housing affordability
  • Share of mortgage holders with negative equity

Family Stress:

  • Separation and divorce rate
  • Share of single parent households
  • Median duration of current marriage
  • Strength of social ties
  • Availability of childcare workers per number of children
  • Child care costs

Health & Safety Stress:

  • Share of adults in fair or poor health
  • Share of adults who could not see a doctor because of cost
  • Share of adults with depression
  • Mental health
  • Suicide rate
  • Share of insured population
  • Share of adult binge drinkers
  • Share of adult smokers
  • Physical-activity rate
  • Share of obese residents
  • Share of adults with inadequate sleep
  • Well-being index
  • Crime rate
  • Hate-crime incidents per Capita

Other local findings from the study includes things Mesa and Peoria ranked as the top two cities for job security; as well as Gilbert ranked with the lowest poverty rate.