WASHINGTON — Just five years after making the top 10, Washington D.C. has fallen even further on a study that ranks the best places to live in the United States.
U.S. News and Report releases its Best Places to Live and Retire rankings annually. The study aims to help people make informed decisions when choosing where to settle down. It takes into account data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Labor, as well as U.S. News' own internal resources.
Click here to learn more about the methodology behind the rankings.
In 2018, D.C. ranked 8 on the annual list, behind Huntsville, Alabama, and ahead of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Just five years later, the District has fallen to 39th place out of the 150 metro areas analyzed.
The report also lists D.C. as #82 in Best Places to Retire and #18 in Most Expensive Places to Live. On the plus side, D.C. is also #12 in Best Places to Live for Quality of Life and #20 in Safest Places to Live.
When looking at the District's desirability, value, job market, quality of life and net migration, U.S. News and World Report gave D.C. an overall rating of 6.4. That number is actually not too bad when compared to the #1 city on the list, Green Bay, Wisconsin, which received an overall rating of 6.9.
When looking at the cost of living in D.C., U.S. News and World Report describe it as "expensive."
"The median home sale price is significantly higher than the national median," the report reads.
The publication's value index leans more toward worse for home buyers, giving it a 4.9 out of 10 compared to Green Bay's value index score of 8 out of 10.
The rankings also take a look at commuting in D.C., saying the average commute time is just over 34 minutes, 7.5 minutes more than the national average.
Additionally, the report goes into detail about who lives in D.C. A majority of which is under the age of 44 and just barely over 50% are married.
One area where D.C. appears to excel is the job market. U.S. News's Job Market Index values the District's job market at 7.4 out of 10, which is better than Green Bay's 6.1. The average salary is more than $30,000 more than the national average and the unemployment rate was lower when last assessed in 2021.
When looking at how safe D.C. is, U.S. News reports the area's crime rate was lower than the national average in 2020. The report gave D.C. a violent crime score of 163.5 and compared it to other metro areas in 2020, such as Chicago's score of 252.8 or Houston's score of 625.4.