Jury Pool Profile

McMinn County, Tennessee

Republican +64.2 (2024)

County seat: Athens
Judicial district: 10th Judicial District Circuit Court
Population (July 2025 estimate): 57,404; Census PEP. The five-year ACS survey average is 54,884.

At a glance

McMinn County is a 57,404-person venue. The county population is 88% White (Census race-alone categories). Median household income is $61,178, $10,829 below the TN state median of $72,007; 18.6% of residents 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher. 4.0% of residents 5 and older speak a language other than English at home, most commonly Spanish. The largest employment sector is Manufacturing, at 30.3% of covered employment, average pay $72,945/year. Trailing-12-month unemployment is 4.33%, above the 3.55% state average. The county carried the Republican presidential candidate in 2016, 2020, and 2024, taking 78% to 82% of the vote across the three.

Population: 54,884
Median household income: $61,470
Unemployment: 4.3%

Who sits on a jury?

Predominantly White

≥70% White (race-alone) and <20% Black. This county: 88% / 3%.

McMinn County has a population of 54,884, with a median age of 42.4. By Census race-alone categories, White residents make up 87.7%; Black residents 3.2%. Independently, 4.6% of residents identify as Hispanic or Latino of any race.

The median household earns $61,178; 18.6% of residents 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher; 13.7% live below the federal poverty line.

Race & ethnicity

White (non-Hispanic) 47,117 85.8%
Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2,506 4.6%
Black or African American (non-Hispanic) 1,735 3.2%
Asian (non-Hispanic) 450 0.8%
Two or more races (non-Hispanic) 2,965 5.4%
American Indian / Alaska Native (non-Hispanic) 21 0.0%
Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander (non-Hispanic) 0 0.0%
Some other race (non-Hispanic) 90 0.2%

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Age distribution

Median age 42.4

Under 18 11,627 21.2%
18–24 4,574 8.3%
25–44 12,621 23.0%
45–64 14,923 27.2%
65 and over 11,139 20.3%

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Income & poverty

Median household income: $61,178; 90% interval $55,472–$66,884; −$10,829 vs TN · 50th of 95
Below poverty line: 13.7%; 90% interval 11.0%–16.4%; +0.4 pp vs TN · 59th of 95

U.S. Census SAIPE 2024

Economic context

Manufacturing anchored

Largest sector in BLS QCEW, even counting every withheld job toward the other sectors: Manufacturing, about 30% of covered jobs.

Manufacturing is the largest employment sector at 30.3% of covered employment, followed by Education & health services at 21.0%. Trailing-12-month unemployment is 4.33%, above the Tennessee state average.

Local economy

Unemployment (12-mo): 4.3%; +0.78 pp vs. state
County GDP: $2.7B; 0.48% of state
Avg. annual pay: $53,996
Establishments: 1,056

U.S. BLS 2026M07 · U.S. BEA 2024 · BLS QCEW 2025

Top employment sectors

Average annual employment by supersector

Manufacturing 5,176 30.3%
Education & health services 3,582 21.0%
Trade, transportation & utilities 3,115 18.2%
Leisure & hospitality 1,703 10.0%
Professional & business services 1,072 6.3%
Public administration 679 4.0%
Financial activities 638 3.7%
Other services 289 1.7%
Construction 40 0.2%
Information 10 0.1%

The sectors listed cover 95.5% of covered employment; BLS withholds the rest to avoid disclosing individual employers.

BLS QCEW 2025

Housing

Home ownership: 75.8%; +8.9 pp vs TN · 46th of 95
Median gross rent: $803; −$386 vs TN · 55th of 95
Owner-occupied: 16,078
Renter-occupied: 5,140

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Local economy in 3 reads

Concentrated

Top three sectors employ 70% of the county workforce. Most panelists likely share employer relationships within these sectors, surface those connections early in voir dire before any institutional-defendant or sector-specific framing.
Moderate wage spread

Highest-paid sector (Manufacturing, $72,945/yr) pays 3.7× the lowest (Leisure & hospitality, $19,732/yr). Expect meaningful income variation across the panel.
Mixed business scale

Average establishment employs 16 workers, a mix of institutional employers and small businesses. Both employed-by-large-institution and small-business-owner perspectives are likely on the panel.

BLS QCEW 2025

Largest employers

Principal employers by headcount

1 of the 3 employers listed here is in manufacturing, accounting for 1,360 employees on this list. So manufacturing is the largest sector by employment here, but the county's biggest named employers sit mostly outside it. A panelist who works somewhere you recognize is probably not working where most of this county works; ask where they work before assuming either pattern fits them.

#	Employer	Sector	Employees
1	DENSO Tennessee, Inc.	Automotive parts manufacturing	1,360
2	McMinn County Board of Education	Public K-12 education	746
3	Starr Regional Medical Center	Hospital	737

Showing 3 of 10 employers on the published list(5,228 employees total).

Source: City of Athens, Tennessee, Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, 'Principal Employers, Current Fiscal Year and Nine Years Ago' schedule. Sources are the McMinn County Economic Development Authority, both school systems and local businesses. The counts shown were first printed in the city's 2024 report and repeated unchanged in 2025. (2024)

Political composition

Consistently strongly Republican

Republican candidate carried this county in 2016, 2020, and 2024 (avg winning share: 80%). 'Strongly' threshold: ≥60% avg.

McMinn County was carried by the Republican candidate in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 cycles, with 81.7% in 2024, 79.7% in 2020, 78.5% in 2016.

Presidential results

2024 presidential · 24,072 votes cast

Republican
Democratic

Republican 19,673 81.7%
Democratic 4,207 17.5%
Other / third-party 192 0.8%

Election results 2024

Languages, households, faith & health

Family-majority, English-speaking

Family households are 70% of all households (thresholds: ≥70% = 'family-dominant'; 50–70% = 'family-majority'; <50% = 'singles/nonfamily-majority'). 4.0% of residents 5 and older speak a language other than English at home (threshold for 'linguistically diverse' is ≥10%).

4.0% of residents 5 years and older speak a language other than English at home. The most common are Spanish, German or other West Germanic, Russian, Polish, or other Slavic. Veterans account for 8.3% of the adult civilian population (3,604 individuals).

Languages spoken at home

96.0% speak only English at home

Spanish 1,191 2.3%
German or other West Germanic 239 0.5%
Russian, Polish, or other Slavic 123 0.2%
French, Haitian, or Cajun 89 0.2%
Tagalog 67 0.1%
Arabic 27 0.1%
Chinese 2 0.0%

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Household composition

Households: 21,218
Family households: 14,794; 69.7% of households
Married couples w/ children: 3,338; 22.6% of families
Single-mother families: 1,331; 9.0% of families
Veterans: 3,604; 8.3% of civilians 18+

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Religious composition

68.6% overall adherence rate

Evangelical Protestant 30,197 56.7%
Mainline Protestant 4,384 8.2%
Black Protestant 982 1.8%
Other (non-Christian + minor traditions) 738 1.4%
Catholic 245 0.5%

US Religion Census 2020

Health & education

Health insured: 90.9%; ±1.3 pp
Uninsured: 9.1%; ±1.3 pp; 59th of 95
With a disability: 18.9%; ±1.2 pp; 50th of 95
Bachelor's or higher: 18.6%; ±1.7 pp; −12.5 pp vs TN · 46th of 95
Uninsured, under 65 (2024): 11.8%; 90% interval 10.6%–13.0% · Census SAHIE

The under-65 uninsured rate is not comparable to the ACS insurance figures, which cover all ages.

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Court infrastructure

Trial court: 10th Judicial District Circuit Court
Judges: 3 (Circuit Court judges per district; Chancery + Criminal Court judges separate; vintage 2026 tncourts.gov)
Court seats: Athens, Benton, Cleveland, Madisonville

This judicial district spans multiple counties.

Court reference

Traffic safety context

McMinn totals, 2024 — the per-100k rate is based on 16 recorded deaths, too few to be statistically reliable

Traffic fatalities: 16; 36.99 per 100k adults (18+)
Fatal crashes: 14

NHTSA FARS 2024