Economic Hardship Across U.S. Counties
Economic Hardship (EH) Rankings — Arizona Counties
All Arizona Counties vs. U.S. Extremes
Economic Hardship Index: All Arizona Census Tracts (2023)
Decomposing the Economic Hardship Index
Economic Hardship Clusters (LISA)
Within-County Variation in Economic Hardship (EH) — All 15 Arizona Counties

High Economic Hardship Clusters (HH) — Hot Spot Tracts Statewide:

233

Low Economic Hardship Clusters (LL) — Cold Spot Tracts Statewide:

253

Economic Hardship Mobility: Maricopa Tracts (2013 → 2023)
Neighborhood Hardship Trajectories (2013–2019)

Tracts Improved (2013→2023)

57.7%

Tracts Worsened (2013→2023)

30.5%

Persistently High Hardship (2013–2023)

17.2%

Emerging Hot Spots (2013–2023)

2.8%

🔴 Areas of Persistent Concern
153 Persistent Hot Spot Tracts (17.2% of Maricopa tracts)

These census tracts had statistically significant high-hardship clustering in both 2013 and 2019. The pattern is not random: a Global Moran’s I of 0.653 confirms that hardship is spatially concentrated, not scattered. Tracts in this category share infrastructure deficits, limited employment access, and concentrated poverty that reinforce one another across neighborhood boundaries.

Implication: Individual-level interventions alone are unlikely to move the needle. Place-based, multi-sector investment is required.

[TODO: Identify the specific geographic corridor in your county where these tracts are concentrated.]
🟡 Early Warning Signals
24 Emerging Hot Spot Tracts (2.8% of Maricopa tracts)

These tracts were not significant hardship clusters in 2013 but became statistically significant by 2019, representing the spatial expansion of hardship beyond historically distressed cores. This is an early warning signal that hardship is spreading, not contained.

Displacement paradox: Some “improving” tracts nearby may be gentrifying, pushing lower-income households outward into these emerging clusters. Declining hardship scores do not necessarily mean existing residents are better off.

[TODO: Identify where emerging hot spots are forming in your county and what may be driving displacement.]
🟢 Signs of Progress Read With Caution
57.7% of Maricopa tracts showed EHI improvement (2013→2023)

The majority of tracts improved over the decade-long window. However, aggregate improvement masks significant variation: 30.5% of tracts worsened over the same period. The data cannot distinguish genuine economic uplift from population turnover: a tract with a declining hardship index may simply have replaced lower-income residents with higher-income newcomers.

Data limitation: Before drawing conclusions from improving scores, ground-truth verification through community engagement and displacement tracking is essential.

[TODO: Customize with your county’s specific context.]
Recommendation 1

Target: 153 Persistent Hot Spot tracts (17.2% of all Maricopa tracts): spatially concentrated, entrenched hardship confirmed by a Global Moran’s I of 0.653.

TODO: Write your first recommendation. Name the specific geographic corridor, cite the hardship index values, and propose a concrete place-based intervention with a named responsible entity.

[Your answer here minimum 3 sentences]
Recommendation 2

Target: 24 Emerging Hot Spot tracts (2.8% of all Maricopa tracts), new high-hardship clusters not present in 2013, signaling spatial expansion.

TODO: Reference the displacement paradox, identify where these clusters are forming, and propose an early-intervention or monitoring strategy.

[Your answer here minimum 3 sentences]
Recommendation 3

Evidence base: 57.7% of tracts improved (2013→2023) but 30.5% worsened; Moran’s I = 0.653 confirms strong spatial clustering persists.

TODO: Using the trajectory map and mobility Sankey, make a forward-looking data-monitoring or cross-sector coordination argument.

[Your answer here minimum 3 sentences]
🔬 Index Sensitivity Reflection

The baseline EHI consists of 3 measures: Poverty + Unemployment + Income (inv.)

Current index: 5-component EHI: Poverty + Unemployment + Income (inv.) + Food Insecurity (SNAP) + Transp. Disadvantage

After adding your extra component(s), answer the following (minimum 2 sentences each):

Q1: What changed spatially?
Compare Hot Spot tract counts and cluster map patterns between your expanded index and the 3-component baseline. Did adding Food Insecurity (SNAP) + Transp. Disadvantage shift which tracts or corridors are flagged?

After adding SNAP and transportation disadvantage, Maricopa’s county-level ranking did not change. It stayed ranked 15th out of 15 Arizona counties, with a national rank of 2386 out of 3142. The bigger change showed up at the tract and cluster level. Statewide high-hardship hot spots increased from 201 to 233 tracts, while cold spots dropped from 260 to 253. In Maricopa, the average tract-level EHI also moved from -0.211 to -0.174, so the expanded index made hardship look slightly more visible inside the county. To me, this shows that food insecurity and no-vehicle access are picking up pieces of hardship that poverty, unemployment, and income alone do not fully capture.

Q2: What stayed the same?
Which Persistent Hot Spot areas appear robustly across index specifications? What does consistency across different index compositions tell us about the reliability of hardship diagnoses in those tracts?

The persistent hot spot pattern stayed pretty stable. The baseline index identified 150 persistent hot spot tracts, and the expanded index identified 153, so the core geography of hardship did not really move. The persistent clusters still appear concentrated around the central Phoenix area and nearby south/east-side tract clusters, instead of being spread evenly across Maricopa County. That matters because these areas are not showing up just because of one index choice. If they stay flagged even after the index changes, that tells me the hardship pattern is more reliable and probably more deeply rooted.

Q3: Policy implications of index choice
If a policymaker targeted place-based investments using the baseline index versus your expanded index, would resource allocation differ? Name specific tracts or geographic corridors and argue which composition better captures the full burden of economic hardship for policy purposes.

Resource allocation would not completely change under the expanded index, but it would become more cautious and more specific. The baseline index made Maricopa look like it improved more, with 63.9% of tracts improving, but the expanded index dropped that to 57.7% and increased worsened tracts from 29.4% to 30.5%. Moran’s I also increased from 0.624 to 0.653, which means hardship looked more spatially clustered after SNAP and no-vehicle access were added. I think the expanded index is better for policy because it captures more of what hardship actually feels like on the ground. A household may not look severely disadvantaged through income alone, but if it relies on SNAP and does not have vehicle access in a car-dependent county, that changes the kind of help that is needed.