What is Amherst Town-Northampton's Life Score?

Amherst Town-Northampton scores 35.9/100 (grade D), rank #375 of 387. Signature composite at the 3rd percentile; stamps BOTTOM · WAGE-LED · cost DEAR · wages PEAK.

What pulls Amherst Town-Northampton up or down?

Strongest: wages (91/100). Weakest: childcare (2/100). Profile mark WAGE-LED; dimension gap 89.

How current is this data?

Federal releases current as of August 2026 (BEA, BLS, HUD, FBI, NCES, DOL, EPA). Cadence varies by series; see methodology.

Metro Life Score

Amherst Town-Northampton, MA

Bottom-quartile composite Life Score — grade D, 3rd percentile of the national corpus.

Compiled by PlainCompare

35.9
Life Score / 100: D
Grade (curved): #375
of 387 metros: 3%
composite percentile

View your shortlist

Data updated August 2026

Verify: BEA · BLS · HUD · FBI · NCES · EPA · Census · Report a data issue · Data changelog

The verdict

Amherst Town-Northampton is bottom-quartile composite Life Score — #375 of 387 (35.9/100, grade D, 3rd percentile). Carried by wages at 91/100; held back most by childcare at 2/100.

3rd
composite percentile: #375
of 387 peers: 21st
cost dimension percentile: 91st
wages dimension percentile

Life Score shape · BOTTOM · WAGE-LED · signature composite

Amherst Town-Northampton: bottom-third composite — where the drag concentrates

Amherst Town-Northampton sits in the bottom third of the metro corpus on composite (#375 of 387, 35.9/100, 3rd percentile). Stamps BOTTOM · WAGE-LED; Childcare at 2/100 is the main drag; Wages (91/100) keeps the floor. Cost/wage marks DEAR/PEAK. According to PlainCompare's federal Life Score corpus ranking, Amherst Town-Northampton, MA ranks #375 of 387 metros by composite Life Score (highest = #1) and #304 of 387 by cost-of-living dimension score (highest = #1). Methodology.

BEA RPP 100.2 (rent-RPP 97.5). BLS median salary $76,696, 59,110 jobs (Home Health and Personal Care Aides, Fast Food and Counter Workers, Retail Salespersons). HUD 2BR FMR $2,004/mo (studio $1,382).

FBI UCR (MA): 309 violent, 1101 property/100K. NCES: 11.9:1 ratio, 4.2% charter. DOL infant childcare $20,571/yr. EPA: 41 Superfund sites (MA).

Where Amherst Town-Northampton sits among all US metros

Composite Life Score vs the national field

36 3rd percentile higher than 3% of 387 US metros

Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more US metros. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.

Source PlainCompare composite of BEA, BLS, HUD, FBI, NCES, DOL, EPA data · August 2026

How the 35.9 is built

Amherst Town-Northampton's Life Score, decomposed

Cost of Living 4.3 (12%) Wages 18.2 (51%) Rent 1.2 (3%) Safety 8.4 (23%) Schools 1.0 (3%) Childcare 0.2 (0%) Environment 2.7 (7%)

Dimension detail

How Amherst Town-Northampton scores, dimension by dimension

Score Breakdown

Dimension Scores

Cost of Living 22/100 (20%) Below average

Wages 91/100 (20%) Top 10%

Rent 8/100 (15%) Bottom 10%

Safety 56/100 (15%) Average

Schools 10/100 (10%) Bottom 10%

Childcare 2/100 (10%) Bottom 10%

Environment 27/100 (10%) Average

Key Data Points

100.2

Cost Index (RPP)

$76,696

Avg Median Salary

$2,004

2BR Fair Market Rent

309

Violent Crime/100K (MA)

11.9:1

Student-Teacher Ratio

$20,571

Infant Childcare/yr (MA)

Superfund Sites (MA)

59,110

Total Employment

Geography used: crime, schools, childcare, and environment cards above are MA state-level when metro-specific feeds are unavailable, see the scope key at the top of this page.

Compare Amherst Town-Northampton With...

Amherst Town-Northampton vs Pittsfield Compare → Amherst Town-Northampton vs Springfield Compare → Amherst Town-Northampton vs Worcester Compare → Amherst Town-Northampton vs Paducah Compare → Amherst Town-Northampton vs Pocatello Compare → Amherst Town-Northampton vs Wildwood Compare →

Ranking Context

Amherst Town-Northampton outranks 3% of U.S. metros.

Rank	Metro	Score	Grade
#372	Barnstable Town, MA	36.2	D
#373	Lexington Park, MD	36.3	D
#374	Worcester, MA	36.4	D
#375	Amherst Town-Northampton, MA	35.9	D
#376	Urban Honolulu, HI	35.6	F
#377	Kahului-Wailuku, HI	35.4	F
#378	New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ	35.4	F

Quality vs. Affordability

Amherst Town-Northampton, MA is bottom 3% lowest-quality nationally and also bottom 22% least affordable -- a rarer combination among its composite-quality peers, where overall rank and affordability rank usually diverge more than this.

Amherst Town-Northampton, MA (highlighted) among its 12 nearest composite-Life-Score peers, out of 387 tracked metros nationally. Crosshairs mark this peer neighborhood's own median composite score and cost-of-living score. Cost-of-living score is already inverted so higher = more affordable.

MA Metro Scores

Pittsfield, MA C- 41.4 Springfield, MA D 38.8 Worcester, MA D 36.4 Barnstable Town, MA D 36.2 Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH F 33.0

Read with Amherst Town-Northampton

Nearest composite peers and cost poles for Amherst Town-Northampton (BOTTOM · WAGE-LED · DEAR/PEAK), replacing the fixed Explore/Guides strip.

Urban Honolulu, HI

ABS(composite) peer at 35.6 (Δ 0.3 vs this metro); lower Life Score · grade F vs this page's BOTTOM · WAGE-LED · DEAR/PEAK.

Barnstable Town, MA

ABS(composite) peer at 36.2 (Δ 0.3 vs this metro); higher Life Score · grade D vs this page's BOTTOM · WAGE-LED · DEAR/PEAK.

Lexington Park, MD

ABS(composite) peer at 36.3 (Δ 0.4 vs this metro); higher Life Score · grade D vs this page's BOTTOM · WAGE-LED · DEAR/PEAK.

Kahului-Wailuku, HI

ABS(composite) peer at 35.4 (Δ 0.5 vs this metro); lower Life Score · grade F vs this page's BOTTOM · WAGE-LED · DEAR/PEAK.

Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI (cost pole)

ABS(cost_score) orthogonal peer at 21/100 (Δ 0); cost stamp DEAR vs this metro's DEAR.

Port St. Lucie, FL (cost pole)

ABS(cost_score) orthogonal peer at 22/100 (Δ 0); cost stamp DEAR vs this metro's DEAR.

Amherst Town-Northampton, MA relocation guide

Stamp-branched guide for BOTTOM · WAGE-LED · DEAR/PEAK - how to read federal Life Score inputs before a move.

Using Amherst Town-Northampton's bottom-third Life Score

Amherst Town-Northampton scores 35.9/100 overall, but Wages (91.2) and Childcare (1.8) sit 89.4 points apart, so decide which of the two matters more to you before leaning on the total.

Wages is the strongest of Amherst Town-Northampton's seven dimensions (weighted 20% in the composite); if it is your priority, this is where the metro earns its rank. See all seven dimensions
Childcare is the weakest (weighted 10% in the composite); if it is a dealbreaker, weigh it before the ranking does. Rank metros on the composite
Pittsfield is the nearest comparison this page can offer; put the two side by side on the same seven dimensions. Compare with Pittsfield

A low composite is a weighted blend; individual dimensions can still be strong.

Data from BEA, HUD, FBI UCR, BLS OES, NCES, DOL, and EPA. Not affiliated with the U.S. Government.

Data sourced from official public datasets. See our methodology for details. Amherst Town-Northampton Life Score 35.9/100 · signature composite · retrieved and formatted by PlainCompare

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

All federal data sources used on this page

U.S. Census Bureau ACS - multi-dimension demographic + housing + income aggregates for cross-area comparison. census.gov/programs-surveys/acs
BEA Regional Economic Accounts - GDP, personal income, employment by state and metro. bea.gov/data/regional
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) - wage estimates for comparable-area indexing. bls.gov/oes
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) - crime statistics for safety-score component. fbi.gov/ucr
NCES Common Core of Data - public-school quality indicators by area. nces.ed.gov/ccd
EPA AirNow + Air Quality System (AQS) - air-quality measurements by area. epa.gov/outdoor-air-quality-data
HUD Fair Market Rents (FMR) - county and metro housing-cost indicators. huduser.gov/datasets/fmr