- Total Annual Necessities: $27,471
- $50K Minus Total Annual Necessities: $22,529
- Median Income: $45,299
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Joel Anderson contributed to the reporting for this article.
Photo disclaimer: Photos are for illustrative purposes only. As a result, some of the images may not reflect the exact towns listed.
Methodology: GOBankingRates determined the best places to live on a $50,000 salary in each state by analyzing cities along these criteria: (1) a minimum of 5,000 households, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey; (2) a median household income between $45,000 to $50,000, sourced from th, U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey; (3) itemized cost-of-living index for groceries, housing, utilities, transportation, healthcare and miscellaneous expenditures, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2021 Consumer Expenditure Survey (latest full year dataset) by income level ($40,000 to $49,999), which were adjusted to each city’s local cost of living, sourced from Sperling’s Best Places. In order to qualify as a “best” city, the total cost of living expenditures could not exceed $50,000, and the city with the lowest overall total cost-of-living expenditures was declared the best. For Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wyoming income restrictions were relaxed. No data for Alaska was available and thus the state was excluded. All data was compiled on and up to date as of May 18, 2023.
