Maricopa County, Arizona
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Maricopa County grew by roughly 80,000 people a year for most of the past decade. The appeal was straightforward: cheaper housing than California, sunbelt weather, a job market anchored by tech and logistics. Income & Poverty scores just 21.7 — meaning income holds up better than nearly 80% of American counties. But Debt & Delinquency registers at 61.9, and Housing Cost Burden sits at 82.2. The structural observation is that growth brought prices faster than the income gains could absorb them. Medical debt ranks at the 59.7th percentile. Credit card delinquency matches it. Auto loan delinquency is at the 60.7th percentile. Every debt category clusters right around the same level — not crisis-level, but uniformly elevated. It's the profile of a county where financial stress is distributed broadly rather than concentrated in a single failure point. The county scores 50.1 overall — barely inside the Elevated zone at 1,591st nationally. Every neighboring county scores worse. Gila County hits 69.6 (Serious). Yuma registers 64.0. Maricopa is the best-performing county in its own geographic cluster, which says more about the region than about Maricopa.
The Numbers Behind the Score
The CDI measures five statistically derived factors of household financial distress, PCA-weighted. Maricopa County's primary driver is Housing Cost Burden at 83.8 — worse than roughly 84% of U.S. counties.
Scores are percentile-based: 50 = national median, higher = more distressed.
Neighbors and Peers
Neighboring Counties
| County | Score | Zone | vs. Maricopa County |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maricopa County, AZ | 60.7 | Elevated | — |
| Gila County, AZ | 64.7 | Elevated | +4.0 |
| Pinal County, AZ | 62.9 | Elevated | +2.2 |
| Pima County, AZ | 61.5 | Elevated | +0.8 |
| Yuma County, AZ | 59.1 | Elevated | -1.6 |
| La Paz County, AZ | 54.5 | Elevated | -6.3 |
| Yavapai County, AZ | 47.9 | Normal | -12.8 |
Population Peers
| County | Score | Zone | vs. Maricopa County |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pima County, AZ | 61.5 | Elevated | +0.8 |
| Palm Beach County, FL | 59.5 | Elevated | -1.2 |
| Franklin County, OH | 62.4 | Elevated | +1.7 |
| Kings County, NY | 58.6 | Elevated | -2.1 |
| Riverside County, CA | 62.8 | Elevated | +2.1 |
Download Data
Export all distress indicators for Maricopa County as a CSV file.
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