PlainRelocate Statistics

Key Findings

• 1

  Across the 387 U.S. metros PlainRelocate tracks, the highest LiveAbility composite score is 68.2/100 (C+), held by Paducah, KY-IL -- no tracked metro clears a B- on the percentile-blended composite.

• 2

  Paducah, KY-IL, the top-ranked metro overall, ranks in the bottom quartile on the wages dimension (22/100) - its composite score is driven almost entirely by affordability (cost 94/100, rent 96/100), not economic opportunity. Affordability and earning potential trade off in opposite directions more often than not across the dataset.

• 3

  San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA leads on wages at 100/100, yet ranks only #346 of 387 on the composite LiveAbility Score (39.9/100) - high pay does not automatically translate into a top overall livability rank when rent and cost dimensions weigh down the blend.

• 4

  71% of tracked metros (276 of 387) receive a D or F composite grade. This is an artifact of how the LiveAbility Score blends eight independently percentile-ranked dimensions into one composite -- not a claim that most American metros are undesirable places to live. See our methodology for how the grade bands are derived.

• 5

  The lowest composite score in the dataset, 32.3/100 (F), belongs to Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH -- high cost of living and rent outweigh its other dimensions in the blended score.

• 6

  The cost-of-living index (BEA Regional Price Parity) ranges from 83.6 to 115.6 across all tracked metros -- the priciest U.S. metro costs about 1.4x the cheapest, a wider spread than a simple coastal-vs-inland framing suggests.

• 7

  8 of the 51 states PlainRelocate tracks (50 states + DC) levy no state income tax on Social Security, pension, or 401(k) withdrawals, earning a perfect 100/100 on the Retirement Friendliness Score's income-tax dimension. See the full retirement rankings.

• 8

  Comparing all 387 tracked metros pairwise, as PlainRelocate's relocation comparison tool does, covers 74,691 possible city-to-city combinations.

• 9

  Affordability and composite score are not strongly correlated: among the more-affordable half of tracked metros (affordability percentile at or above the median), Paducah, KY-IL posts the highest LiveAbility Score at 68.2/100 while still scoring 94/100 on affordability -- a genuinely rare combination in the dataset. See the full spread below.

Affordability vs. Livability

A representative sample of 30 metros, evenly drawn across the full affordability range of all 387 tracked metros, plotted by affordability percentile (X, higher = cheaper) against composite LiveAbility Score (Y, higher = better). The two are only loosely correlated -- cheap and great are not mutually exclusive, but they are not the same thing either. Hover or tap any point for its name and scores. See the full ranking of all 387 metros for the complete picture.

The Full Distribution

Every one of the 387 tracked metros' composite LiveAbility Score, bucketed in 10-point bands, with Paducah, KY-IL (the top scorer) marked.

How These Are Computed

Every figure above is queried live from the same federal datasets and scoring pipeline that power every metro, state, and comparison page on PlainRelocate. No figure here is hand-typed or curated separately. As the underlying federal releases refresh, these findings update automatically. See our full methodology for the source list, scoring weights, and known limitations.

Download the full LiveAbility Score dataset (CSV, CC0)