Omaha, NE-IA
Composite score across cost, rent, crime, wages, schools, childcare, and environment — sourced from seven federal agencies.
Ranked #65 of 387 metros · Top 83%
Reading the Omaha Life Score
Omaha's composite score of 59.4 out of 100 — earning a grade of C- — places the metro at rank #65 of 387 in the national file, inside the top 83%. The composite is a weighted roll-up of seven dimensions: Cost of Living (20%), Wages (20%), Rent (15%), Safety (15%), Schools (10%), Childcare (10%) and Environment (10%), each normalized to a 0-100 percentile scale. The strongest inputs are Safety (81/100) and Wages (70/100), which pull the composite upward, while Schools (21/100) and Rent (41/100) drag it downward. Because the weights are fixed, a metro that scores high on the 20%-weighted cost and wage dimensions can absorb mediocre scores elsewhere and still land a high composite — and vice versa.
Under the cost layer, BEA Regional Price Parities read 91.9 for Omaha — 8.1% below the U.S. average, with rent-specific RPP at 86.4. BLS wage records do not match this metro in the latest OES cycle. HUD's 2-bedroom Fair Market Rent for the metro comes in at $1,368/mo (studios $1,090/mo), the figure that governs housing-choice voucher payment standards and anchors the rent sub-score.
Safety is scored from FBI UCR at the state tier (NE), which reads 217 violent crimes per 100,000 residents and 1631 property crimes per 100,000 — state-level crime always overstates rural-county risk and understates urban-core risk inside a single metro, so the safety score should be read as a regional baseline, not a street-level reading. School quality rolls up from NCES at 13.6:1 statewide student-teacher ratio with 0.0% charter share — a structural signal, not a performance measure. Childcare uses DOL center-based infant cost of $9,863/yr, a line item that can shift a household's real cost-of-living picture more than headline RPP. Environment draws on EPA records including 19 Superfund sites tracked for NE. Compared against ranks #62 through #68 in the table below, Omaha's position is driven by the dimension weights above — not by any single metric — which is why the radar and sub-scores are worth more attention than the composite.
Score Breakdown
Dimension Scores
Top Strengths
Areas for Improvement
Key Data Points
Crime, schools, childcare, and environment data shown at state level where metro-specific data is unavailable.
Compare Omaha With...
Ranking Context
Omaha is in the top 83% of U.S. metros. Here's where it falls in the national rankings.
| Rank | Metro | Score | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| #62 | Morgantown, WV | 59.5 | C- |
| #63 | Florence-Muscle Shoals, AL | 59.5 | C- |
| #64 | Dothan, AL | 59.5 | C- |
| #65 | Omaha, NE-IA | 59.4 | C- |
| #66 | Lynchburg, VA | 59.3 | C- |
| #67 | Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC | 59.2 | C- |
| #68 | Lima, OH | 59.2 | C- |
Similar-Scoring Metros
NE Metro Scores
Explore Omaha Data
Planning a Move to Omaha? Get the Full Relocation Guide
This Life Score page compares Omaha on schools, crime, rent, demographics, and climate — useful when shortlisting metros side-by-side. Once Omaha is on your shortlist, the next layer of decision-making is cost of living, move-in checklist, climate exposure, and 7-dimension relocation intelligence (career, healthcare, lifestyle, infrastructure). PlainRelocate covers exactly that, with the same 387-metro coverage and matching slug — start with the Life Score here, then drill into relocation specifics there.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Research Guides
Data from BEA, HUD, FBI UCR, BLS OES, NCES, DOL, and EPA. Not affiliated with the U.S. Government.
Related
Disclaimer: This information is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Data is sourced from BEA, BLS, HUD, FBI, NCES, DOL, and EPA. Consult a qualified professional before making decisions based on this data.
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