Economy

This Is the Most Family-Friendly City in America

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: October 11, 2021 10:30 am

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual America’s Families and Living Arrangements, 63.1 million children under 18 were living at home in 2020. In 78% of these households, people were married, and 36% of households had only one person. Regardless of household size, many parents want to find family-friendly places to raise their children. While some parents would like to move to these places, many cannot because of income or jobs that require them to live in a certain place.
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The authors of LendingTree’s recently released “Best Large Metros for Families With Children” study acknowledged that it is hard to pin down what a family-friendly city was, based on widely differing wants and needs of parents. However, their analysis was based on seven factors:

1. Median family income
2. Median monthly housing costs for homes with a mortgage
3. The homeownership rate among families with at least one child
4. The unemployment rate for 25- to 44-year-olds
5. The percentage of 16- to 19-year-olds not enrolled in school who don’t have a high school diploma or an equivalent degree
6. The average round-trip commute time
7. The percentage of households with children

The researchers made the point that “Though they aren’t all-encompassing, these factors were chosen because each tends to directly impact households with children.” The data was pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau 2019 American Community Survey.

The best city on the list was Salt Lake City. Based on the criteria, it had a high 36.6% households with children, a low commute time of 46.6 minutes and a high median household income of $91.939.

Click here to see which are the 50 best cities to live in.