State Life Score
Delaware
Bottom-quartile composite Life Score — grade C-, 14th percentile of the national corpus.
- 40.0
- Life Score / 100
- C-
- Grade (curved)
- #44
- of 51 states
- 14%
- composite percentile
Data updated August 2026
Verify: BEA · BLS · HUD · FBI · NCES · EPA · Census · Report a data issue · Data changelog
The verdict
Delaware is bottom-quartile composite Life Score — #44 of 51 (40.0/100, grade C-, 14th percentile). Carried by wages at 60/100; held back most by rent at 20/100.
- 14th
- composite percentile
- #44
- of 51 peers
- 37th
- cost dimension percentile
- 59th
- wages dimension percentile
Life Score shape · LOWER · WAGE-LED
Delaware at a glance
Delaware is a LOWER-band WAGE-LED state: wages leads at 60/100 while rent drags at 20/100 (DEAR cost · MID wages). According to PlainCompare's federal Life Score corpus ranking, Delaware ranks #44 of 51 states by composite Life Score (highest = #1) and #32 of 51 by cost-of-living dimension score (highest = #1). Methodology.
Where Delaware sits among all US states
Composite Life Score vs the 50 states + DC
40 14th percentile higher than 14% of 51 US states
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more US states. 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
How the 40.0 is built
Delaware's Life Score, decomposed
Dimension detail
How Delaware scores, dimension by dimension
Score Breakdown
Dimension Scores
Read with Delaware
Nearest composite peers and cost poles (LOWER · DEAR/MID).
California
ABS(composite) peer at 40.1 (Δ 0.1 vs this state); higher Life Score · grade C- vs this page's LOWER · WAGE-LED · DEAR/MID.
Connecticut
ABS(composite) peer at 40.6 (Δ 0.6 vs this state); higher Life Score · grade C- vs this page's LOWER · WAGE-LED · DEAR/MID.
Montana
ABS(composite) peer at 38.7 (Δ 1.3 vs this state); lower Life Score · grade C- vs this page's LOWER · WAGE-LED · DEAR/MID.
South Carolina
ABS(composite) peer at 41.3 (Δ 1.3 vs this state); higher Life Score · grade C- vs this page's LOWER · WAGE-LED · DEAR/MID.
Illinois (cost pole)
ABS(cost_score) orthogonal peer at 36/100 (Δ 2); cost stamp DEAR vs this state's DEAR.
Utah (cost pole)
ABS(cost_score) orthogonal peer at 40/100 (Δ 2); cost stamp MID vs this state's DEAR.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Every figure on PlainCompare is loaded directly from BEA, HUD, FBI UCR, BLS OEWS, NCES, DOL, EPA, and the Census Bureau, no number is typed in by an editor. This state's Life Score is computed directly from the same federal sources used across PlainCompare. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of August 2026.