America's Best Counties To Live In

Special Report

Published: March 29, 2024 8:50 am

With a $27.4 trillion economy, the United States is by far the wealthiest country in the world. Even adjusting for population, U.S. GDP per capita is over $76,300, higher than in all but nine other countries, according to the World Bank. (Here is a look at the countries with the most millionaires.)

Still, by several other key measures, the U.S. lags behind many other countries with similar democratic, free market values. For example, life expectancy at birth has fallen for two consecutive years in the U.S., according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. At just 76 years as of 2021, life expectancy in the U.S. is the seventh lowest among the 38 OECD member states.

The Human Development Index is another, more holistic measure, that shows the U.S. lags behind many of its peers globally. The HDI, created by the United Nations Development Programme, is made up of three components: educational attainment, financial stability, and life expectancy, and is designed to capture a country’s development potential and overall quality of life.

According to the latest HDI report, the U.S. ranks behind 19 other countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. However, when applied to geographies within the U.S., the HDI reveals that in many parts of the country, quality of life is on par with some of the highest ranking nations in the U.N.’s report.

Using an index inspired by the HDI, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 40 best U.S. counties to live in. Counties and county equivalents, including independent cities, are ranked on a combination of three measures – average life expectancy at birth, the share of adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher, and the poverty rate. Data used to calculate rankings are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey and County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a joint program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. All ACS data are five-year averages. Counties with incomplete data were excluded from analysis. To avoid geographic clustering, we only included one county per metropolitan statistical area.

The 40 counties and county equivalents on this list are spread across the country, including five in the Northeast, six in the Midwest, 11 in the South, and 18 in the West. Colorado alone is home to nine of these counties, followed by Virginia and California, which each have three counties or county equivalents on this list.

In each of these 40 counties, average life expectancy at birth exceeds the national average by at least two years, according to data from County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. Most of these places also have poverty rates that are at least 4 percentage points below the 12.5% U.S. poverty rate, and in all but six of these counties, over half of all adults have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to only about one-third of all adults nationwide.

Most of these places also have relatively high-earning populations. Even though income was not considered in the ranking, in every county but one on this list, the typical household earns more than the national median household income of $75,149 — in most cases, by tens of thousands of dollars. (Here is a look at the richest town in every state.)