State Life Score
Hawaii
Bottom-quartile composite Life Score — grade F, 2nd percentile of the national corpus.
- 31.5
- Life Score / 100
- F
- Grade (curved)
- #50
- of 51 states
- 2%
- composite percentile
Data updated August 2026
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The verdict
Hawaii is bottom-quartile composite Life Score — #50 of 51 (31.5/100, grade F, 2nd percentile). Carried by safety at 74/100; held back most by rent at 0/100.
- 2nd
- composite percentile
- #50
- of 51 peers
- 2nd
- cost dimension percentile
- 65th
- wages dimension percentile
Life Score shape · BOTTOM · SAFE-LED
Hawaii at a glance
Hawaii is a BOTTOM-band SAFE-LED state: safety leads at 74/100 while rent drags at 0/100 (CEILING cost · HIGH wages). According to PlainCompare's federal Life Score corpus ranking, Hawaii ranks #50 of 51 states by composite Life Score (highest = #1) and #50 of 51 by cost-of-living dimension score (highest = #1). Methodology.
Where Hawaii sits among all US states
Composite Life Score vs the 50 states + DC
32 2nd percentile higher than 2% 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 31.5 is built
Hawaii's Life Score, decomposed
Dimension detail
How Hawaii scores, dimension by dimension
Score Breakdown
Dimension Scores
Read with Hawaii
Nearest composite peers and cost poles (BOTTOM · CEILING/HIGH).
Massachusetts
ABS(composite) peer at 33.4 (Δ 1.9 vs this state); higher Life Score · grade D vs this page's BOTTOM · SAFE-LED · CEILING/HIGH.
District of Columbia
ABS(composite) peer at 26.8 (Δ 4.7 vs this state); lower Life Score · grade F vs this page's BOTTOM · SAFE-LED · CEILING/HIGH.
Maryland
ABS(composite) peer at 37.3 (Δ 5.8 vs this state); higher Life Score · grade D vs this page's BOTTOM · SAFE-LED · CEILING/HIGH.
New York
ABS(composite) peer at 38.2 (Δ 6.7 vs this state); higher Life Score · grade D vs this page's BOTTOM · SAFE-LED · CEILING/HIGH.
California (cost pole)
ABS(cost_score) orthogonal peer at 0/100 (Δ 2); cost stamp CEILING vs this state's CEILING.
New Jersey (cost pole)
ABS(cost_score) orthogonal peer at 6/100 (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.