Methodology
Every score on CityLedger is computed from public U.S. government data by the formulas below. No proprietary index, no editorial thumb on the scale — if you disagree with a weight, you can see exactly what to change.
Maintained by Muhammad Tahir. Last reviewed June 2026.
Where the data comes from
- Income, rent, home value, education, commute, unemployment, populationU.S. Census Bureau — American Community Survey (ACS), 1-year estimates
- Cost of living (price level, U.S. = 100)U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis — Regional Price Parities (RPP)
All sources are public domain. Each figure on a city page links back to its source and shows the vintage year.
The Livability score
A 0–100 blend of five components, each normalized to fixed anchors (not graded on a curve, so a city's score doesn't change just because we add more cities):
Income adjusted for the local price level (BEA RPP). Anchors: $105k real income → 100, $65k → 0. Falls back to rent-to-income where cost-of-living is unavailable.
Unemployment rate (Census ACS). 2% → 100, 8% → 0.
Per-capita income (Census ACS). $60k → 100, $25k → 0.
Adults 25+ with a bachelor's degree or higher (Census ACS). 50% → 100, 15% → 0.
Mean commute, minutes (Census ACS). 18 min → 100, 38 → 0.
Affordability & purchasing power
Affordability asks a simple question: how far does a typical paycheck actually go here? We take median household income and divide by the local price level (BEA RPP ÷ 100) to get cost-adjusted income— what residents' money is really worth. A $90,000 income in a city that's 20% cheaper than average is worth about $112,500 in national terms.
Try it yourself on the salary calculator.
How often it's updated
- Census ACS and BEA RPP refresh annually; we rebuild when new vintages publish.
- Each city page shows the exact vintage year and the date the dataset was built.
- Found an error? Every figure links to its source so you can check our work.