State Life Score
South Dakota
Top-quartile composite Life Score — grade A-, 84th percentile of the national corpus.
- 59.4
- Life Score / 100
- A-
- Grade (curved)
- #8
- of 51 states
- 84%
- composite percentile
Data updated August 2026
Verify: BEA · BLS · HUD · FBI · NCES · EPA · Census · Report a data issue · Data changelog
The verdict
South Dakota is top-quartile composite Life Score — #8 of 51 (59.4/100, grade A-, 84th percentile). Carried by childcare at 93/100; held back most by wages at 12/100.
- 84th
- composite percentile
- #8
- of 51 peers
- 88th
- cost dimension percentile
- 12th
- wages dimension percentile
Life Score shape · UPPER · BALANCED
South Dakota at a glance
South Dakota is a UPPER-band BALANCED state: childcare leads at 93/100 while wages drags at 12/100 (FLOOR cost · LOW wages). According to PlainCompare's federal Life Score corpus ranking, South Dakota ranks #8 of 51 states by composite Life Score (highest = #1) and #6 of 51 by cost-of-living dimension score (highest = #1). Methodology.
Where South Dakota sits among all US states
Composite Life Score vs the 50 states + DC
59 Top 16% higher than 84% 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 59.4 is built
South Dakota's Life Score, decomposed
Dimension detail
How South Dakota scores, dimension by dimension
Score Breakdown
Dimension Scores
Read with South Dakota
Nearest composite peers and cost poles (UPPER · FLOOR/LOW).
North Dakota
ABS(composite) peer at 59.7 (Δ 0.3 vs this state); higher Life Score · grade A- vs this page's UPPER · BALANCED · FLOOR/LOW.
West Virginia
ABS(composite) peer at 58.7 (Δ 0.7 vs this state); lower Life Score · grade A- vs this page's UPPER · BALANCED · FLOOR/LOW.
Idaho
ABS(composite) peer at 60.1 (Δ 0.7 vs this state); higher Life Score · grade A- vs this page's UPPER · BALANCED · FLOOR/LOW.
Oklahoma
ABS(composite) peer at 58.5 (Δ 0.9 vs this state); lower Life Score · grade B+ vs this page's UPPER · BALANCED · FLOOR/LOW.
Alabama (cost pole)
ABS(cost_score) orthogonal peer at 88/100 (Δ 2); cost stamp FLOOR vs this state's FLOOR.
Louisiana (cost pole)
ABS(cost_score) orthogonal peer at 92/100 (Δ 2); cost stamp FLOOR vs this state's FLOOR.
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.