State Life Score
District of Columbia
Bottom-quartile composite Life Score — grade F, 0th percentile of the national corpus.
- 26.8
- Life Score / 100
- F
- Grade (curved)
- #51
- of 51 states
- 0%
- composite percentile
Data updated August 2026
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The verdict
District of Columbia is bottom-quartile composite Life Score — #51 of 51 (26.8/100, grade F, 0th percentile). Carried by wages at 100/100; held back most by childcare at 0/100.
- 0th
- composite percentile
- #51
- of 51 peers
- 4th
- cost dimension percentile
- 98th
- wages dimension percentile
Life Score shape · BOTTOM · WAGE-LED
District of Columbia at a glance
District of Columbia is a BOTTOM-band WAGE-LED state: wages leads at 100/100 while childcare drags at 0/100 (CEILING cost · PEAK wages). According to PlainCompare's federal Life Score corpus ranking, District of Columbia ranks #51 of 51 states by composite Life Score (highest = #1) and #49 of 51 by cost-of-living dimension score (highest = #1). Methodology.
Where District of Columbia sits among all US states
Composite Life Score vs the 50 states + DC
27 0th percentile higher than 0% 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 26.8 is built
District of Columbia's Life Score, decomposed
Dimension detail
How District of Columbia scores, dimension by dimension
Score Breakdown
Dimension Scores
Read with District of Columbia
Nearest composite peers and cost poles (BOTTOM · CEILING/PEAK).
Hawaii
ABS(composite) peer at 31.5 (Δ 4.7 vs this state); higher Life Score · grade F vs this page's BOTTOM · WAGE-LED · CEILING/PEAK.
Massachusetts
ABS(composite) peer at 33.4 (Δ 6.6 vs this state); higher Life Score · grade D vs this page's BOTTOM · WAGE-LED · CEILING/PEAK.
Maryland
ABS(composite) peer at 37.3 (Δ 10.5 vs this state); higher Life Score · grade D vs this page's BOTTOM · WAGE-LED · CEILING/PEAK.
New York
ABS(composite) peer at 38.2 (Δ 11.4 vs this state); higher Life Score · grade D vs this page's BOTTOM · WAGE-LED · CEILING/PEAK.
New Jersey (cost pole)
ABS(cost_score) orthogonal peer at 6/100 (Δ 2); cost stamp CEILING vs this state's CEILING.
California (cost pole)
ABS(cost_score) orthogonal peer at 0/100 (Δ 4); cost stamp CEILING vs this state's CEILING.
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.