City A or City B?
Decide with data.
Side-by-side metro and state comparisons across cost of living, rent, crime, wages, schools, childcare, and environment, all from official federal sources.
- Metro areas
- 387
- States covered
- 51
- Data dimensions
- 7
- Federal sources
- 6
Pick City A and City B, every dimension is a national percentile from a federal dataset.
Quick picks
Prefer states? Jump to state compare.
What the data shows
According to BEA and BLS percentiles (2026-08-29 vintage), composite Life Score #1 is Paducah (72.8/100) while affordability #1 is Monroe and wages #1 is San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara - three different leaders among 387 metros. Only 6 clear the top third on both cost and pay (r = -0.79).
- #1 72.8
- composite Life Score (Paducah)
- #1 100.0
- affordability percentile (Monroe)
- #1 100.0
- wage percentile (San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara)
- 6 of 387
- metros top-third on cost AND wages
Every dimension is a national percentile from BEA, HUD, FBI, BLS, NCES, DOL, or EPA, weighted into one Life Score. Compare any two places below.
Corpus letter bands
How the 387 metros split by Life Score letter
Exclusive curved letter bands on the same 387-metro composite board. Orthogonal to the three-leader dual above and to the affordability/wage top-5 bars below (a metro can lead wages and still sit in C-range on the composite; these four buckets cannot overlap).
The trade-off, visualised
Affordability vs pay across all 387 metros
Each dot is one metro, placed by how affordable it is (rightward) against how high its wages run (upward). The cloud drifts toward the bottom-right: the cheaper a place is, the less it tends to pay. The few gold dots clear the top third on both at once.
Most affordable metros
BEA cost-of-living percentile (higher = cheaper). Top 5 of 387 metros.
- #1 Monroe · 100.0 affordable · wages 2.6
- #2 Eagle Pass · 99.7 affordable · wages 0.0
- #3 Dothan · 99.5 affordable · wages 1.3
- #4 Texarkana · 99.2 affordable · wages 7.8
- #5 Enid · 99.0 affordable · wages 0.5
Highest-wage metros
BLS wage percentile. Top 5 of 387 metros. Same corpus, opposite order.
- #1 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara · wages 100.0 · affordable 2.3
- #2 San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont · wages 99.7 · affordable 0.0
- #3 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue · wages 99.5 · affordable 1.6
- #4 New York-Newark-Jersey City · wages 99.2 · affordable 0.8
- #5 Boston-Cambridge-Newton · wages 99.0 · affordable 4.7
Share that clears both top thirds
If affordability and wages moved together, about a third of metros would land in both top thirds. The live share is 1.6% (6 of 387).
Compare two states
Same seven federal dimensions, rolled up to the state. Metro compare lives in the hero above.
Popular Metro Comparisons
Popular State Comparisons
Seven federal dimensions
Each Life Score input is a national percentile from its owning agency, never a user estimate.
- Cost of Living
- Regional Price Parities by metro
- BEA
- Rent
- Fair Market Rents by bedroom count
- HUD
- Crime
- Crime rates per 100K population
- FBI
- Wages
- Occupational salary data
- BLS
- Schools
- Enrollment and student-teacher ratios
- NCES
- Childcare
- Childcare cost estimates
- DOL
- Environment
- Facilities, water systems, Superfund sites
- EPA
City Comparison Guides
Learn how to compare cities objectively with federal data.
How to Compare Cities
A six-dimension framework for evaluation.
Understanding Metro Data
What each data dimension reveals and its limits.
Relocation Decisions
From shortlist to final choice with data.
Using Data for Relocation
8-factor framework with cost, crime, schools, jobs, and climate.
Cost & Wage Sweet-Spot Metros
Metros in the top third on both affordability and wages.
Explore Life Scores and federal rankings
Jump straight to scored metros, state boards, curated federal rankings, and comparison tools, each link names the dataset behind the page.
Federal data rankings
Top 20 metros by composite Life Score
- #1 Paducah Life Score A+
- #2 Pocatello Life Score A+
- #3 Wildwood-The Villages Life Score A+
- #4 Huntington-Ashland Life Score A+
- #5 St. Cloud Life Score A+
- #6 Ames Life Score A+
- #7 Charleston Life Score A+
- #8 Lexington-Fayette Life Score A+
- #9 Elizabethtown Life Score A+
- #10 Sioux Falls Life Score A+
- #11 Monroe Life Score A+
- #12 Owensboro Life Score A
- #13 Cedar Rapids Life Score A
- #14 Lafayette Life Score A
- #15 Lewiston Life Score A
- #16 Lincoln Life Score A
- #17 Louisville/Jefferson County Life Score A
- #18 Alexandria Life Score A
- #19 Beaumont-Port Arthur Life Score A
- #20 Decatur Life Score A
Browse all 387 metro Life Scores · Full national rankings table
State Life Score boards (51)
- Alabama B+
- Alaska C
- Arizona C+
- Arkansas B-
- California C-
- Colorado C
- Connecticut C-
- Delaware C-
- District of Columbia F
- Florida C
- Georgia B
- Hawaii F
- Idaho A-
- Illinois B-
- Indiana B
- Iowa A
- Kansas B
- Kentucky A
- Louisiana A
- Maine B-
- Maryland D
- Massachusetts D
- Michigan B-
- Minnesota B+
- Mississippi A+
- Missouri B-
- Montana C-
- Nebraska A
- Nevada C+
- New Hampshire C
- New Jersey D
- New Mexico C+
- New York D
- North Carolina C+
- North Dakota A-
- Ohio B+
- Oklahoma B+
- Oregon C+
- Pennsylvania B-
- Rhode Island C
- South Carolina C-
- South Dakota A-
- Tennessee C
- Texas B
- Utah B-
- Vermont B
- Virginia B
- Washington C+
- West Virginia A-
- Wisconsin B+
- Wyoming B+
Comparison tools
Browse the data
Explore metros, states, counties, and rankings across cost of living, wages, rent, safety, schools, childcare, and environment.
- Rankings Browse rankings Cheapest metros, safest states, highest-paying jobs from official federal datasets.
- Metros All 387 U.S. metros Every MSA with a composite Life Score across seven dimensions.
- Methodology How we compute scores Weighting, source datasets, and limits: every score is reproducible from public data.
What to do with this
387 metros and 51 states are scored above -- here's where to go next.
- Paducah, KY-IL currently leads the composite Life Score board; see how every metro compares. Full rankings
- Line up two places side by side across cost, wages, crime, schools, childcare, and environment. Compare hub
- Narrow the full metro list to the datasets and thresholds that matter for your move. Build a shortlist
Every figure traces to its federal source; see the methodology for the Life Score weighting.
About this data
How PlainCompare works, and why you can trust these numbers
What this site is
PlainCompare is a side-by-side city and metro comparison tool that combines cost of living, wages, crime, schools, childcare, and environmental data into a single composite Life Score. Every input metric comes from a specific federal agency's own published dataset, never from user submissions or estimates.
Editorial process
- Source. Pull each metric directly from its owning federal agency: cost of living from BEA, rent from HUD, crime from the FBI, wages from BLS, schools from NCES, childcare from the Department of Labor, and environment from the EPA.
- Verify. Each figure keeps its agency and vintage attached, so a reader can trace any Life Score input back to the original federal release.
- Publish. Compile a weighted composite Life Score per city/metro, and let readers compare any two locations side by side across every underlying metric.
Editorial independence & corrections
PlainCompare is independent and accepts no payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement. Found an error or an outdated figure? File a correction via the contact page; we review corrections and publish updates with a visible revision note. See our methodology for the full Life Score weighting and source attribution.
Frequently asked
What is PlainCompare?
PlainCompare is a cross-portal city comparison tool that lets you compare U.S. metro areas across multiple dimensions, cost of living, crime rates, school quality, wages, rent, and more, using data from federal sources.
Where does the comparison data come from?
PlainCompare aggregates data from multiple federal agencies including the BEA (cost of living), FBI (crime), NCES (schools), BLS (wages), HUD (rent), and EPA (environment). Each data point links back to its source portal for deeper analysis.
How many metros can I compare?
PlainCompare covers 387 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) across the United States. You can compare any two metros side by side or browse rankings across all metros.
Is PlainCompare free?
Yes, PlainCompare is completely free. No account or signup required. All comparison data comes from public federal sources and is presented without any paywall.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is PlainCompare?
PlainCompare is a cross-portal city comparison tool that lets you compare U.S. metro areas across multiple dimensions, cost of living, crime rates, school quality, wages, rent, and more, using data from federal sources.
Where does the comparison data come from?
PlainCompare aggregates data from multiple federal agencies including the BEA (cost of living), FBI (crime), NCES (schools), BLS (wages), HUD (rent), and EPA (environment). Each data point links back to its source portal for deeper analysis.
How many metros can I compare?
PlainCompare covers 387 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) across the United States. You can compare any two metros side by side or browse rankings across all metros.
Is PlainCompare free?
Yes, PlainCompare is completely free. No account or signup required. All comparison data comes from public federal sources and is presented without any paywall.