Your shortlist
The places you are deciding between
Add places from any score page and they land here, side by side on the same seven dimensions. The list is stored in your browser, never on our servers, and the link is shareable so you can send your candidates to whoever you are deciding with.
- 0
- On your shortlist
- 7
- Dimensions
- 387
- Metros available
Your shortlist is empty. Open any place score and use Add to shortlist, then come back here to see them compared on one scorecard. Nothing is sent to our servers: the list lives in this browser until you clear it.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting program and five further federal sources, the 3,224 counties and 438 scored places behind this shortlist are measured on identical definitions; this site’s comparison set was last rebuilt in May 2026. The methodology states which release of each source a dimension uses.
What this tool is for
The seven dimensions behind these scores come from seven different federal sources, each published on its own schedule and in its own units. Reading them side by side for four places is the part that is genuinely hard to do by hand, and it is the part that decides where someone actually moves.
A composite score is a starting point, not a verdict. It weights every dimension equally, which almost nobody does in real life: if you are moving for a job the wage score matters more than the childcare score, and if you have small children the reverse is true. Use the per-dimension rows to find where your candidates genuinely differ, then read those places' own score pages for the underlying numbers.
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 page renders the stored seven-dimension scores for the places you selected, live from the dataset. The selection itself is kept in your browser and never sent to our servers. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.