The Best Place To Live on a $100,000 Salary in Every State
Making six figures? Consider living in one of these fine places.
Wyoming: Green River
- Livability score: 83
- Median income: $70,784
- Total annual necessities cost: $40,142
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Andrew Lisa contributed to the reporting for this article.
Photo disclaimer: Photos are for illustrative purposes only. In many cases, the closest major city outside of the city/county mentioned it the article was used.
Methodology: To find the best place to live on a $100,000 salary in every state, GOBankingRates looked at the five cities in every state with the highest livability score from AreaVibes. In addition to each city's (1) livability score, GOBankingRates also found (2) the median household income in every city according to the Census Bureau's 2018 American Community Survey and (3) the total annual cost of necessities for households with an annual income of $100,000 in each city, calculated by referencing the Bureau of Labor Statistic's 2019 Consumer Expenditure Survey data on spending habits for consumers in the $100,000 to $149,999 income bracket and projecting annual spending in six necessity categories in every city using Sperling's Best Places' city-level cost-of-living index data. The six necessity categories considered include housing, groceries, utilities, healthcare, transportation, and miscellaneous spending. Cities where annual necessity spending exceeded $50,000 were then removed from consideration, in order to ensure all cities in the final ranking would be affordable for those with a $100,000 salary following the 50/30/20 rule, which dictates that no more than 50% of income should be allocated to necessities. All remaining cities were then ranked against the others in their state on factors No. 1-3, with high livability scores, high median household income and low cost of necessities being scored more favorably, and the highest-scoring city in each state was identified as the best place to live on a $100,000 salary. AreaVibes' livability scores take into consideration a variety of quality of life indicators, such as crime rates, school quality, employment, amenities and more. Due to the high cost of living in the following states, consideration was expanded beyond the top five most livable cities: California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and Oregon. All data was collected on and up to date as of Nov. 23-24, 2020.
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