Which Are the Best U.S. Cities for Starting Your Career With a Living Wage Job?

Editorial Staff

Inflation has been a high-pressure issue for Americans since the outbreak of COVID-19 —
and despite being long out of lockdown, consumers continue to shop strategically as the cost
of living rises.

By August 2024, consumer prices remained 22% above pre-COVID levels, and the majority of
Americans were “very concerned” about the price of food and goods. And inflation has
continued to rise well into 2025, leading American families to further tighten the purse
strings.

But how your home budget adds up can depend very much on the prices and wage levels
where you live. To help you picture this, NetCredit created a cost of living calculator. They
also compared local entry-level job wages to local costs of living using MIT’s Living Wage
Calculator and ranked states and cities based on the percentage of job ads offering salaries
above the local living wage.

Methodology Behind Study

NetCredit ranked states and cities based on the percentage of job ads that offered salaries
above the local living wage.

To define the living wage by location, the team found the cost of living for one adult (without
children) by metro area and state using MIT’s Living Wage Calculator.

They identified the 100 most populous cities in the U.S. (and the most populous by state) and then mapped the cities to their corresponding metro areas.

The NetCredit team then used Indeed.com to find the number of new entry-level jobs in
each location, using the filters to isolate only full-time, entry-level jobs posted in the past
week. This allowed them to compare the percentage of entry-level jobs in each location that
met the local living wage as defined above.