Think tank’s fully interactive web-based dashboard features more than 56,000 data points and a new economic mobility framework for Tennessee
NASHVILLE – Released today by nonpartisan think tank ThinkTennessee, the 2025 State of Our State Dashboard is an interactive tool designed to help decisionmakers, advocates, and the public learn more about policy outcomes in Tennessee. Now in its seventh year, the Dashboard includes more than 56,000 data points in an engaging and comprehensive web-based dashboard that illustrates how Tennessee ranks nationally on 143 metrics across nine issue areas.
“The 2025 State of Our State Dashboard comes during an exciting period of growth for Tennessee,” said Erin Hafkenschiel, president of ThinkTennessee. “In 2023 (the last iteration of the Dashboard), Tennessee ranked #1 in the country in GDP growth and road quality. While we are no longer ranked #1 in those categories, there are several rankings where Tennessee is in the top 10, including high school graduation rate (#2), road quality (#6), population growth (#8), residential electricity rates (#9), and social connectedness with neighbors (#10). There are also some indicators that should raise alarm bells, including the share of adults who are avoiding healthcare due to cost (#46), voter turnout (#47), and the share of young children not in school (#44). We hope this tool – and our economic mobility framework in particular – provides a starting point for critical policy discussions about promoting our vibrant quality of life, keeping our cost of living competitive, and ensuring all Tennesseans can benefit from the state’s prosperity.”
The State of Our State Dashboard is ThinkTennessee’s signature research project and has been published biennially since the organization’s founding in 2017. The Dashboard provides rankings and data in nine issue categories: criminal justice & courts, economic opportunity, state economy, education, elections & civic life, energy & environment, health, housing, and transportation & infrastructure. The 2025 iteration represents a significant expansion of data, enhanced visuals, and increased user interactivity compared to previous versions.
Notable new features include:
- Longitudinal data (includes the three most recently available years, where available)
- Disaggregated data (by race, gender, and age where available)
- Metric ranks and data points for all states and DC/District of Columbia, viewable in both an interactive bar chart and map
- Multiple prepopulated reports (by issue category and subgroup) and downloadable charts and maps
Also new this year, following a review of peer frameworks and academic research, ThinkTennessee identified 15 metrics shown to improve economic prosperity. These metrics are included in the economic mobility framework, “Charting Tennessee’s Prosperity: 15 Metrics that Matter Most,” and cover a range of issue areas, including overall state economic performance, the environment, health, economic opportunity, housing, infrastructure, education, and civic participation.
Key Findings:
- Currently, Tennessee is performing relatively well on a third of these key metrics, including Home Ownership (#25), Air Pollution (#26), Renter Housing Affordability (#29), and Workers Earning Living Wages (#29).
- Some of these indicators have shown improvement. Post-High School Educational Attainment (#41) increased from 38.7% in 2019 to 41.2% in 2022 and Borrowers with Severely Delinquent Debt (#42) decreased from 18.9% (2020) to 17.7% (2022).
- Our lowest rankings illustrate where more focused attention and intervention is needed to catch up to our peer states, such as Poverty (#42), Young Children Not in School (#44), Adults Avoiding Care Due to Cost (#46), Total Incarceration Rate (#44), and Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections (#47).
For the sake of consistency, rankings have been standardized so low numbers always reflect positive outcomes. Specifically, being ranked 1st is always better than being ranked last (e.g., 51st). Technical documentation for the framework and a full research methodology is available for download on the Dashboard webpage.
