15 Cities Where People Want To Work — Can You Afford Them?

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Choosing where to live as you carry out your professional career could be one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make — because you might end up spending decades there. How long you remain partly depends on how much thought you put into a city’s cost of living. There can be a huge gap between cities where people want to work and cities that people can afford.

This was borne out in a new analysis from financial services company Empower, which ranked the 20 most affordable U.S. cities for working adults and the 15 cities working adults most want to live.

Only one city in the country landed on both lists: Charlotte, North Carolina. The list of desirable cities to work includes some of the most expensive in the country, where even a good paycheck won’t go very far.

For its analysis, Empower surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults — including 800 working adults — to get their perspectives on the best cities to live in and what qualities make them most appealing. The survey was conducted in July 2023 by Fractl on behalf of Empower.

The working adults ranking was based on the following variables and weights:

• Home affordability: 30% of the overall score.
• Average income: 30% of the overall score.
• Cost of living: 25% of the overall score.
• Labor force participation based on percentage of employed residents: 15% of the overall score.

To determine where working adults most want to live, Empower ranked some of their top priorities. Cost of living came in first, with 55% of respondents mentioning it. Other top priorities cited by at least one-fifth of respondents are: being close to family (mentioned by 30%), crime (28%), employment opportunities (27%), home prices (24%) and weather (22%).

Of the 15 cities ranked as the most desirable to work, six also rank in the top 15 most populous U.S. metro areas. Interestingly, the list is fairly evenly split between warm-weather cities and those in much colder climates.

Here are the 15 cities working adults most want to live in:

1. Denver, Colorado: Mentioned by 17% of respondents.
2. San Diego, California: 16%.
3. New York, New York: 15%.
4. Charlotte, North Carolina: 14%.
5. Seattle, Washington: 14%.
6. Raleigh, North Carolina: 12%.
7. Austin, Texas: 12%.
8. Tampa, Florida: 12%.
9. Los Angeles, California: 11%.
10. Portland, Oregon: 11%.
11. Nashville, Tennessee: 10%.
12. Miami, Florida: 10%.
13. Colorado Springs, Colorado: 9%.
14. Chicago, Illinois: 9%.
15. Boston, Massachusetts: 9%.

You don’t have to be an economist to know that many of those cities are among the most expensive in the country — including Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Diego and Seattle. Most of the others can’t exactly be called cheap. So if you want to work in these cities, you better make sure that you earn a much higher-than-average salary.

As mentioned earlier, the lucky winner straddling the worlds of both desirability and affordability is Charlotte, which is also included in Empower’s list of 20 most affordable cities. Here’s the complete list:

• Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
• Springfield, Illinois.
• Wichita, Kansas.
• Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• Des Moines, Iowa.
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
• Lincoln, Nebraska.
• Anchorage, Alaska.
• Omaha, Nebraska.
• McAllen, Texas.
• Indianapolis, Indiana.
• Lexington, Kentucky.
• Lubbock, Texas.
• Columbia, Missouri.
• Clarksville, Tennessee.
• Peoria, Illinois.
• Charlotte, North Carolina.
• Kansas City, Missouri.
• Fayetteville, Arkansas.
• Huntsville, Alabama.

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