Back on June 04, 2019, the True Dollar Journal shared with you the 2019 BETTER CITIES, USA by the True Dollar Journal. Unlike other ranking systems found through the Internet, the TDJ 2019 Better Cities ranking ranks cities based on how much buying power do you have relative to pre-tax income after lawgivers put their hands on your income and you account for the cost of living in a city.
 |
| Spokane, Washington |
With the 2019 True Dollar Journal Cities, USA Guide, the True Dollar Journal gives you a way to compare living in nearly every city in the USA with a population of 5,000 or more.
2019 True Dollar Journal Cities, USA Guide Map
Using the map is easy.
- Zoom in or out
- Click the icon to the left of the title to remove sections of the country
- Click on a map pin to get details
- Click on the icon on the far right to open the map in a new tab.
Understanding the Key Stats
Key to the TDJ Cities USA Guide is the Buying Power Index to Pre-tax Income ratio and the crime data.
The BPI to Pre-tax (BPI-to-PTI) Income ratio yields a perception of relative richness or poorness from gross income. The BPI-to-PTI is a ratio of net income to average gross income.
Net income is adjusted by the cost of living for every city after after income taxes paid to Congress (federal income taxes), as well as state income taxes paid, if any. The average gross income is that income for a city's state.
The cost of living adjuster proportionally accounts for housing, groceries, gasoline, car insurance, comparable rent or mortgage, heating and cooling of an average-sized house, clothing, eating out, entertainment, services, the standard daily rate for a hospital room, the average price for a doctor's visit and a dental check up.
Getting the Most Out of the TDJ Cities USA Guide — Comparing Cities
One way to use the BPI-to-PTI is this. Say you live in Thousand Oaks, California, with a BPI to PTI of 0.40 and you are considering a move because you feel poor after you get your paycheck and pay your bills.
You have heard some good things about Surprise, Arizona. So you check out the TDJ USA Cities Guide. You see the Violent Crime Index and the Property Crime Index for Surprise, Arizona are comparable to Thousand Oaks, California (22.6 and 76.5 verus 34 and 56.8, respectively). With a move from Thousand Oaks to Surprise where you would earn the average income ($43,650 in Arizona vs $62,586 in California), even though you would take a 30% pay cut, your living standard would jump 80% because Surprise has a BPI to PTI of 0.72.
The math is simple:
(.72 ÷ .40 ) - 1 = .80 x 100 = 80%
Cities by Regions
If you prefer tabular data, here are the cities by regions. You can click on the map links to see where any city is.The Population Growth / Shrink Index compares the population growth or shrinkage of any city to the nationwide growth rate where 100 equals the nationwide growth rate. So, a score of 200 is twice the growth rate for the USA.
That should give you a better understanding of how fast a city is growing or declining. Cities tend to grow faster when living is better.
Even when cities have low violent crime and low property crime, when population declines happen, tax bases decline. That translates to less policing, for example. That could affect the future quality of living in such cities.
Gab It
