Best Job Markets 2018

It’s no secret that the US labor market is changing rapidly. Ten years after the recession, the recovery
seems ongoing, and we’re still grappling with decades-long challenges like declining manufacturing
and expanding imports from China. At the same time, a new wave of innovation and technological
change promises massive disruption (good for some and bad for others), and the recent growth of
“new collar” jobs is providing excellent career opportunities outside of traditional education path-
ways.

But though these challenges and opportunities affect the whole country, not everywhere feels them
the same way. So we thought this was a good opportunity to take stock of the varying labor market
experiences around the country. To do so, we constructed the Best Job Market Index.

Obviously, unemployment is an important factor of determining the best job market. But we didn’t
want to stop there. Many important economic transformations are only just beginning, or are still
to come. So we wanted an index that doesn’t just tell us how things are now, but that also helps us
understand how well cities are likely to fare in coming years.

To do that, we decided to base our index on the following 10 factors:

1. Opportunity
For anyone, the most important thing about a labor market is being able to find a job. We use
ZipRecruiter’s Opportunity Index, which is the ratio of the number of openings posted to the number
of job seekers. If this number is high, it means there are plenty of opportunities. If it’s low, job seekers
will be scrambling to compete with each other over the scarce prospects.

2. Retail resilience
But we recognize that a healthy job market doesn’t just have opportunities now, but is likely to have
them in the future. One of the most important challenges coming down the road is the decline of
brick-and-mortar retail establishments and the jobs they offered. As we’ve shown before, retail workers

1
The Methodology section at the end of the report has much more detail on these factors.

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have a lot of valuable skills. Some industries demand these skills more than others (what we call “re-
tail-like” jobs), and some cities have more of these jobs than others. Following our earlier methods,
we use the skills listed in ZipRecruiter posts to classify the number of retail-like jobs per retail job.

3. New collar jobs

But not every recent economic shift is a bad one. One of the more exciting changes is the expansion
of “new collar” jobs, which are skilled jobs that don’t necessarily require a traditional 4-year degree.
We think these jobs are going to be pretty important for the future of the American dream. As we’ve
explained before, we use skills databases to define middle-skill jobs, classify ZipRecruiter posts for
these as new collar positions, and rate cities partly on their prevalence.

4. Industry diversity
Of course, at ZipRecruiter, we think a lot about how job seekers can find their dream job. But what
happens if it turns out not to be so dreamy? If a city is highly specialized in a single industry, it can
be hard to switch career paths if you end up unhappy with your job. That’s why we rated cities based
on the diversity of industries. We used openings posted to ZipRecruiter to create a variant of the
Herfindahl index, used by economists to measure concentration. Our industry diversity measure
ranges from 0 (which would represent a single industry responsible for all the posts) to 1 (if a large
number of industries all posted just as much). Cities with little diversity have a lot riding on that one
industry, and in times of rapid change that’s a big gamble.

5. Unemployment
Of course, the most important feature in a labor market is the ability to find a job, and so our index
uses the October 2017 unemployment rate.

6. Earnings
To measure how much jobs pay, we use data on the median 2016 earnings of full-time workers
(because different cities have different numbers of part-time workers, and earnings will of course be
lower if you’re only working part-time).

7. Affordability
But, of course, earnings aren’t everything. What matters is whether you have the ability to buy what
you need, especially housing. We measured the affordability of a city by taking the ratio of the 2016
median household income to Zillow’s calculation of median rental costs. If this ratio is large, it means
that the typical family has no problem covering the cost of housing. If it’s small, then housing takes
up a larger share of household budgets.

8. Commute
Of course, a good employment situation is about more than just being at work. It’s also about getting
to work. Research increasingly links longer commutes to more stress and less life satisfaction. And
so we rate cities based on their average workers’ regular commute, with shorter commutes getting
better ratings.

9. Health
Health is one of the most important determinants of worker productivity. Healthy workers have lower
absenteeism, more productivity, and save firms on healthcare costs. In fact, research shows nearly

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every aspect of worker health affects businesses. So we thought it was important to include worker
health in measuring labor market health. Our health ratings are actually based on two separate
ratings.

a. Doctors per capita

We measure the number of primary care physicians (PCP’s) per 1,000 residents. Where there are
more PCP’s, people are more likely to keep up to date with their health.

b. Obesity
One of the most important determinants of overall health is being significantly overweight, and
research has shown many links between obesity and problems in the workplace. We use the CDC’s
estimate of the adult obesity rate in our health metric.

10. Community
A week has 168 hours. Even lawyers don’t work that much. So the community in which your job is
located has a big impact on your quality of life. We focused on two traits of communities that are
especially likely to affect the workplace.

a. Walkability
Walkable neighborhoods are easier to navigate, and bring benefits to establishments relying on foot-
traffic. So we included Walk Score’s 2017 ratings of cities’ walkability.

b. Public transit
Good public transit makes it easier for employees to get to work, customers to get to shops, and
helps offset some challenges related to traffic and affordability. So we included Walk Score’s 2017
transit rating.

To create our final index, we took each factor, sorted cities from best to worst, and assigned them a
score from one (the best) to zero (the worst) based on where in the rankings they fall. For instance,
the metro with the lowest unemployment would get a score of 1 on that factor, the one with the
highest unemployment would get a 0, and a metro that fell in the middle of the rankings would get
a 0.5 on that factor. To create our health scores, we averaged these scores for doctors and obesity,
and similarly, we average walkability and transit scores to get our community score.2 Then, with our
10 scores in hand (one for each factor), we took an average of all 10 of them and multiplied by 100 to
get our final index: A score for the quality of the job market.

This score ranges from 0 (which would be a metro that’s exactly at the bottom in all 10 factors) to
100 (a metro that’s the single best in all 10 factors). A metro that’s average at everything would have
a score of 50. This index treats each of these 10 factors as equally important, but if there’s a factor
you don’t like, we’ve included a table at the end that generates the full set of scores (and rankings)
after dropping each factor. If you don’t like one of our factors, take a look at the alternate rankings
without it and see how much it matters.

We used this score to rank 356 metropolitan areas (MSA’s or metros) using consistent criteria. More
detail on the methods is included at the end of the report, but first let us tell you about what we
found.

For instance, this gives health as much influence in the final index as affordability, but only gives obesity half as much influence, since
2

health depends on both obesity and doctors.

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 Main results
Table 1 shows the five highest-scoring and lowest-scoring job markets in the US. They might
surprise you.

Coming in at first place is Fargo, North Dakota. While Fargo excels in many of our factors, what sets
it apart the most is its low unemployment. At only 1.6% (compared to 3.9% for the average metro),
it’s lower than over 99% of other metros. Beyond unemployment, though, Fargo’s opportunity index,
rates of new collar jobs, diverse set of industries, short commutes, and retail resilience are each
better than 80% of other metros. Even its greatest weakness (affordability) is roughly at the national
average.

At the other end of the list is Weirton, WV, which is struggling with walkability (with the lowest walk
score in the country), new collar jobs (85% of other metros have more), unemployment (standing
at 5.8%, well above the national average), and industry diversity (89% of other metros are more
diversified). Its earnings, opportunity index, and commutes are also worse than the national average.
To add to these challenges, Weirton struggles with obesity and 95% of other metros have more
doctors per capita. At the same time, though, with rents less than a fifth of median income, Weirton
is one of the five most affordable metros in the country.

At the end of the report, we’ve included the full set of factors (as well as how they rank) for all
metros. You can compare the other metros on our top-5/bottom-5 list, as well as see how your own
stacks up.

Table 1. The highest-scoring and lowest-scoring job markets in the US

Metro Rank Score Population Best factor Worst factor

Fargo, ND 1 80.1 238,000 Unemployment Affordability

Columbia, MO 2 78.6 177,000 Unemployment Earnings

Oshkosh, WI 3 73.8 170,000 Commute Community

Honolulu, HI 4 72.5 993,000 Unemployment Commute

Ames, IA 5 71.8 97,000 Unemployment Retail resilience

Punta Gorda, FL 352 27 178,000 New collar Community

Panama City, FL 353 26.9 201,000 Unemployment Community

Hinesville, GA 354 26.8 83,000 Commute Health

Yuba City, CA 355 25.1 172,000 Retail ratio Industry diversity

Weirton, WV 356 25 121,000 Affordability Community

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What’s driving the difference between our highest-scoring and lowest-scoring metros? It’s not a
single factor. Figure 1 shows that our top-5 and bottom-5 metros stand out on a wide range of
characteristics. It compares our 5 highest-scoring job markets (dark blue) and 5 lowest-scoring (light
blue) with the rest of the country. You can see that our highest-scoring metros have an opportunity
index that is, on average, 20% higher than the rest of the country, and our lowest-scoring metros’ is
almost 40% lower. New collar jobs are also 20% more prevalent, unemployment is over 50% lower,
earnings and affordability are 10% higher, and the set of industries is slightly more diverse. Our
lowest-scoring metros, on the other hand, perform consistently worse than the rest of the country in
all of these categories. Taken together, our index captures a wide range of characteristics, and it’s all
of these characteristics that set metros apart from one another.

Figure 1. Comparing the highest- and lowest-scoring metros

5 Highest-Scoring Metros 5 Lowest-Scoring Metros Rest of Country (Normalized to 1)

1.3

0.975

0.65

0.325

0
Affordability Earnings New Collar Industry Diversity Opportunity Index Unemployment

Digging deeper
Our full set of tables, included with this report, let you see any metro and any of the factors we
consider. But instead of going through city by city, we wanted to give you an overview of some
broad trends and why we think they matter.

Do small cities score better or worse? Both

Table 1 shows that the highest-scoring job markets are found in small metros. But… So are the lowest-
scoring. So what gives?

The complex size-job market relationship

On average, larger metros provide get slightly higher scores than smaller ones. Table 2 shows that
large cities (with 2.5 million or more people) have an average score of 53.1, compared to 49.3 in small
cities (with 500,000 or fewer people).

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 Table 2. Minneapolis is highest-scoring large job market

Population Num. Avg. Score Highest-scoring metro Lowest-scoring metro

metros

2.5 mil. or more 21 53.1 Minneapolis, MN (68.3) Riverside, CA (30.5)

1 – 2.5 mil. 32 52.0 Pittsburgh, PA (66.2) Las Vegas, NV (31.7)

500,000 – 1 mil. 54 50.8 Honolulu, HI (72.5) Modesto, CA (29)

Less than
249 49.3 Fargo, ND (80.1) Weirton, WV (25)
500,000 pop.

But that difference is just an average. Figure 2 shows that the real story is that large job markets are
much more consistent, while small ones vary widely between the highest scores (like Fargo, ND)
and the lowest ones (like Weirton, WV). The figure shows the relationship between our highest job
market score and population (on a log scale, to make the figure easier to read). The triangle shape
means that big metros (further to the right) tend to converge near average quality, while smaller
ones (to the left) run the gamut.

Figure 2. The highest- and lowest-scoring job markets are in the smallest metros

Why is this? It’s because being big brings some distinct advantages, and disadvantages. Table 2
shows how several key factors relate to metro size. As you may have guessed, big cities have a more
diverse mix of industries. Spreading eggs across so many baskets helps reduce these cities’ risk that
key industries get hit hard (as often happens in recessions). Big cities also have better health, partly
because of better access to doctors.

But being big is a double edge sword. Big cities are less affordable, with rent taking up a bigger
chunk of median income. And, you guessed it, big cities have much longer commutes. Compared to
those in small cities (population under 500,000), workers in cities over 2.5 million people spend, on

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 Table 3. Some factors get better with size, some get worse

Industry Doctors per

Factor Affordability Commute Worst factor
diversity capita

Correlation with
.226 .149 -.247 .618 Affordability
population:

average, 8 more minutes each way traveling to work. That’s a 37% increase in commute time, and
totals almost an hour and a half each week.

Some weak job markets struggling to keep up with population growth

So should we all flock to the highest-scoring metros? Not so fast. At least some metros are already
struggling to keep up with their growing popularity.

Large population growth can strain housing markets, job markets, and infrastructure. Figure 3 splits
metros into those with declining population (about ¼ of all metros), those with modest (0-20%)
population growth over the last 10 years (about half of metros), and those with rapid population
growth (more than 20% increase from 2006 to 2016).

As you can see, metros that are growing fast have slightly lower total job market scores. These are
surely nice places to live (and that’s why people are flocking there), but they’re struggling to keep
up with the growth. The opportunity index (the number of jobs per job seeker) is 7% lower than
modestly growing metros, and all the extra job seekers push down earnings by around 2%. This new

Figure 3. Rapid population growth brings down several key factors

Shrinking Modest Growth Rapid Growth

1.1

1.025

0.95

0.875

0.8
Affordability Transit Earnings Total Score Opportunity Index

population pushes up housing costs, and as a result housing affordability is slightly lower. Finally,
transit systems struggle to keep up with the population influx, and transit scores are about 6% lower.

These cities clearly have a lot going for them (enough advantages that their total score isn’t affected
much), but there are challenges that come with big population growth.

Regional differences and why the Great Plains are so Great

Where are the highest-scoring job markets? Figure 4 maps all 356 of our metros, with darker
blues indicating higher-scoring job markets. As you can see, there are high-scoring job markets
everywhere. However, there are some regional differences. Below, we explore why.

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 Figure 4. Strong job markets are found all around the country

60.70 − 80.10 50.30 − 55.00 39.40 − 45.90

55.00 − 60.70 45.90 − 50.30 25.00 − 39.40

60.70 − 80.10 50.30 − 55.00 39.40 − 45.90

55.00 − 60.70 45.90 − 50.30 25.00 − 39.40

The Where: Which regions have the highest-scoring job markets?

The map in Figure 4 above shows that good job markets exist everywhere. But they often cluster in
the middle of the country. Table 4 shows average regional differences in job market scores, as well
as the highest-scoring and lowest-scoring metros in each region. As you can see, nearly all regions
have high-scoring markets (all but the Southeast have a metro with a score of 65 or higher) and low-
scoring ones (all but the Plains and New England have a metro with a score of 36 or lower). But there
are average differences.

The Plains has the highest-scoring job markets on average. Among the 32 metros in this region
(which includes Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota), the
average score is 61.9, and all metros score 44.6 or higher. These numbers are much higher than other
regions. Coming in second is the Rocky Mountain region, which averages only 58.

The lowest-scoring markets, on the other hand, are found in the South and West. The average metro
in the Southeast and Southwest scores only 44.4 and 46, while the Far West (Alaska, California,
Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington) average only 47. While there are some standout cities
(Honolulu scores a 72.5, Midland, TX, scores a 66.9), there are also a number of very low scores.

Table 4. Regional differences in job market quality

Num. Avg. Highest-scoring

Region Range Lowest-scoring metro
metros score metro

New England 14 54.2 43.3 – 66.9 Burlington, VT Norwich, CT

Mideast 34 54.7 36.1 – 66.2 Pittsburgh, PA Salisbury, MD

Great Lakes 58 52.2 27.7 – 73.8 Oshkosh, WI Muskegon, MI

Plains 32 61.9 44.6 – 80.1 Fargo, ND Gape Girardeau, MO

Southeast 111 44.4 25 – 59.2 Lexington, KY Weirton, WV

Southwest 38 46 28.2 – 66.9 Midland, TX Lake Havasu City, AZ

Rocky Mountain 22 58 32.1 – 70.4 Lewiston, ID Coeur d’Alene, ID

Far West 47 47 25.1 – 72.5 Honolulu, HI Yuba City, CA

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 The Why: What separates the Plains from the Southeast?
Why are scores lower in the South and West than in the Plains states? Table 5 shows each region,
along with its best and worst factor.3 The Plains stand out because of low unemployment. The
average Plains metro has unemployment of only 2.4%, much lower than the 3.9% in the average US
metro. Even where Plains metros struggle, offering relatively few new collar positions, they don’t
perform too much worse than the national average.

For metros in the Southeast, industry diversity is their strongest advantage. On the other hand,
while there is a slightly more diverse set of jobs available, there aren’t many of them. Southeastern
metros have relatively low opportunity index, meaning ZipRecruiter job seekers vastly outnumber job
openings. Metros in the Southwest, on the other hand, have fairly average levels of opportunity. They
struggle with low walkability and transit scores, although they do enjoy relatively short commutes.

So is our index treating the South and West fairly? Is one of our factors holding them back from
shining? Not so fast. The last column of Table 5 drops each region’s worst factor from our index and
recalculates their total score. Everyone’s score rises when we ignore their biggest weakness, but
those in the South change relatively little and always remain below 50 (which always represents the
average). So is it just one or two factors setting the South back? No.

Table 5. Key factors explaining regional differences

Avg. Best Reg. avg. Reg. avg. Score w/o

Region Worst factor
Score factor (and nat. avg.) (and nat. avg.) worst factor

$53,511 25.5 min.

New England 54.2 Earnings Commute 57.3
(nat.: 43,416) (nat.: 22.8)
Walk score: 58
24.7 min.
Mideast 54.7 Community Transit: 48 Commute 56.5
(nat.: 22.8)
(nat.: 49, 41)
4.12 10.6
Great Lakes 52.2 Affordability Retail resilience 53.7
(nat.: 3.65) (nat.: 13.6)

2.4% 20.1%
Plains 61.9 Unemployment New collar 64.4
(nat.: 3.9) (nat.: 21.3)

.843 .395
Southeast 44.4 Industry diversity Opportunity index 45.8
(nat.: .837) (nat.: .551)
Walk score: 45
21.8 min.
Southwest 46 Commute Community Transit: 36 47.4
(nat.: 22.8)
(nat.: 49, 41)
3.0% .828
Rocky Mountain 58 Unemployment Industry diversity 59.8
(nat.: 3.9) (nat.: .837)
Doctors: .75
2.98
Far West 47 Health Obesity: 27% Affordability 48.9
(nat.: 3.65)
(nat.: .75, 30)

3
To find the best and worst factor, we average each factor’s score across all metros in the region, and look at the factor which is the
highest, relative to the average. So for instance, in the Plains, metros had an average unemployment score of .89 (meaning the average
Plains metro has lower unemployment than 89% of other metros), which was higher than the average factor score for any other factor.

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 To see this, Table 6 ranks each region according to each factor. For instance, New England’s metros
have the 5th highest average opportunity index, the 8th highest (i.e., the lowest) rates of new collar
jobs, and the 3rd highest average retail resilience.

Table 6 shows that the Great Plains are great for a lot of reasons. They come in first with high levels
of our opportunity index, low unemployment, high affordability, and short commutes. On most other
factors (industry diversity, earnings, health, and community) they are near the average. Overall, Table
6 shows pretty consistently strong job markets in the middle of the country.

Southern challenges, on the other hand, are also widespread. Both the Southeast and Southwest
are in the bottom 3 in opportunity, earnings, health, and community. In terms of unemployment,
affordability, and commute time, they perform average or slightly worse than average. All in all,
regional differences in job market scores don’t seem to be driven by one or two factors we’ve
chosen, but are pretty consistent across the full range of important determinants.

Table 6. Regional rankings for each factor

Opp. New Retail Ind. Com- Com-

Region Unemp. Earnings Afford. Health
index collar resil. divers. mute mun.

New England 5th 8th 3rd 6th 3rd 1st 7th 8th 1st 2nd

Mideast 4 1 1 3 7 2 3 7 5 1

Great Lakes 7 5 8 1 6 4 2 3 8 4

Plains 1 7 7 5 1 5 1 1 4 5

Southeast 8 2 6 2 4 8 4 5 6 6

Southwest 6 3 4 4 5 7 6 4 7 8

Rocky
2 6 2 7 2 6 5 2 3 7
Mountain

Far West 3 4 5 8 8 3 8 6 2 3

But tomorrow’s job market won’t look like today’s job market, and tomorrow’s rankings might not
either. Plains metros worst performance is in new collar opportunities and retail-like jobs, where it
ranks 7th of the 8. As these jobs become more important in coming years, time will tell whether the
Plains can maintain its ranking, and with the Southeast is well ahead in new collar jobs, it may be
poised to rise.

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 How new collar jobs can make it, and commutes can break it
Which factors can transform cities? What are the factors most responsible for pulling metros’
scores up, and which ones hold them back? A city’s highest factor score will always do the most
work pulling its average (total score) up, and its lowest will always have the biggest effect pulling it
down. For instance, Chicago’s total score is 51.2, roughly average. But it’s community score is .898
(its highest factor score), which strongly pulls its average up, and its commute score is only .020
(its lowest factor score), which pulls it down. We can calculate each city’s highest factor and lowest
factor, which tells us what is the most important characteristic pushing them ahead (and holding
them back).

The most common top factor is the prevalence of new collar jobs. For 48 metros this was their best
feature. One reason why new collar postings might stand out from the others is because the cities
with the most new collar opportunities don’t yet have the best labor markets. Indeed, there’s very
little relationship between new collar prevalence and the current opportunity index or unemployment
rate. But that’s because new collar is still a relatively recent emphasis in the labor market. As these
positions expand opportunities for many young workers and start to drive productivity in ever more
industries, we’ll see whether these new collar focused cities (many of which are located in the South)
climb to the top of the rankings.

The factor that holds the most cities back, on the other hand, is the commute. Hate that long
commute? So do people in major cities like New York City and Washington, DC, where the workers
spend as much as two more hours commuting each week than in the average metro. Figure 6 maps
the cities who’s ranking is most held back by their long commute. Most are big cities, as you’d
expect, but a handful of small cities (like Worcester, MA, Knoxville, TN, and Allentown, PA) get caught
up in the commute, too, and their (already respectable) scores would rise if they could bring these
commutes down.

Figure 5. Most new collar opportunities Figure 6. Longest average commutes

60.70 − 80.10 50.30 − 55.00 39.40 − 45.90

60.70 − 80.10 50.30 − 55.00 39.40 − 45.90
55.00 − 60.70 45.90 − 50.30 25.00 − 39.40
55.00 − 60.70 45.90 − 50.30 25.00 − 39.40

60.70 − 80.10 50.30 − 55.00 39.40 − 45.90

55.00 − 60.70 45.90 − 50.30 25.00 − 39.40

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Conclusion
All in all, we tried to produce a pretty comprehensive view of the quality of job markets across 356
metros. We combined a wealth of ZipRecruiter data with a number of important publicly available
datasets and generated a metric offering a pretty comprehensive view of the labor market, and of
life in general. Digging into this index, we hope you learned something about the state of the labor
market today, and for the future. We didn’t cover everything you’re interested in? We encourage
you to download the data and run your own analyses! Share your findings with us on Twitter @
ZipRecruiter!

Methodology and further details

Methods

The data
ZipRecruiter data was used to calculate the opportunity index and active postings for new collar
jobs exactly as described in the links above. To calculate retail resilience, we took the ratio of active
ZipRecruiter jobs in “business” to active jobs in retail. This is similar to the method outlined in the
link above, but for such a large number of metros, the detailed industry codes weren’t available. For
the measure of industry diversity, we calculated the Herfindahl index based on active ZipRecruiter
job postings from 24 industries (the sum of squared shares), and calculated our industry diversity
measure as one minus the Herfindahl.

Median income and average commute times were taken directly from the 2016 American Community
Survey (conducted by the Census Bureau) at the MSA level. 2016 is the most recent year available.
The Census Bureau doesn’t report median earnings of all full-time, full-year workers at the MSA
level, it only reports that for men and women separately. So we took a weighted average of the male
and female median earnings, weighted by number of male and female full-time, full-year workers.
Unemployment for October 2017 is available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the MSA level.

To get rent prices, we used Zillow’s median October rent data. To calculate affordability, we
multiplied median rent by 12 (to take monthly rent to annual rent) and took the ratio of median
household income (from the Census Bureau) to that annual rent.

Zillow’s rent index and doctors per 1,000 residents are both available at the county level. We used a
crosswalk from county to MSA from the Missouri Census Data Center’s MABLE application (note that
a county never crosses MSA borders). For obesity, walk, and transit scores, we took city level data,
mapped it to zip codes, and mapped those zip codes to MSA.

For population growth, we simply took the change in an MSA’s population between 2006 and 2016,
recognizing that the definitions of these MSA’s and their borders also changed during this time.

In the attached dataset, oppindex is the opportunity index, ncratio is the share of active posts that
are for new collar jobs, retratio is the ratio of retail-like jobs to retail jobs, nherf is industry diversity
(one minus the Herfindahl), urate is the unemployment rate, earn16 is median earnings for full-time/
full-year workers, affbility is the affordability measure (median income to median rent), comm16 is
average commute time, pcpper1k is primary care physicians per 1,000 residents, avg_obesity_rate
is the obesity rate, avg_walk_score is the walk score, avg_transit_score is the transit score, pop06
is the 2006 population, pop16 is the 2016 population, and pg0616 is the population growth (percent
change) between 2006 and 2016.

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The index
The total index is based on an average of 10 factor scores, as explained in the intro. For the first 8,
we ordered metros from worst to best, calculated their place in the ordering, and divided (their place
minus 1) by (the total number of metros minus 1). This ensures that the best (and the end of the
order) gets a score of 1, the worst (at the top of the order) gets a zero, and everyone else’s score is
their place in the distribution (.5 means the middle).

For the health score, we did this same thing with doctors per capita and obesity rate, and then took
an average of those two scores to get the health score. For the community score, we did this with
walkability and transit.

Finally, we took an average of those 10 scores, and multiplied by 100. Taking an average in this way
basically ignores the fact that some metros had missing data in some of the factors. If you’re missing
one factor, your average is simply based on the other nine.

In the accompanying dataset, these factor scores are included as variables starting with an x. For
instance, xoppindex is the opportunity index factor score. The rankings based on these factors
scores is included, too, as variables starting with rx. So rxoppindex is the MSA’s ranking in terms of
opportunity index. We’ve also included alternate versions of the index, excluding one factor at a time.
These are included as variables starting with altindex_no. So altindex_noxoppindex is an alternative
index excluding the opportunity index.

The sample
We used every MSA (as defined in the 2016 population data) for which 2 or fewer factors were
missing. This was the only sample inclusion criteria.

Sources
We created the ZipRecruiter data ourselves, but have included the variables we used so that you
can use them, too. Unemployment is from the BLS’ Local Area Unemployment Statistics series for
October 2017 (not seasonally adjusted).

We accessed population estimates and the American Community Survey data through American
FactFinder. Populations (both 2006 and 2016) come from their year’s respective Table S0101 variable
hc01_est_vc01. Median household income is from Table S1903 variable hc02_est_vc02. Average
commute is from Table S0801 variable hc01_est_vc55. Median earnings was calculated as described
above (weighted average for male and female full-time/full-year workers) using variables hc02_est_
vc15, hc03_est_vc15, hc02_est_vc04, and hc03_est_vc04 from Table S2001. Income, commutes, and
earnings are all from the 2016 ACS.

Doctor’s per 1,000 population is from the CDC’s Interactive Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke, and
obesity rates are from the CDC’s 500 Cities project (we specifically use obesity among adults age 18
and older). Walkability and transit scores are both from Walk Score.

Additional results
Did you want to see how all these factors relate to each other? We thought you might. Here’s the
correlation matrix.

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 Table 7. Correlation between factors (not scores)

X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 X8 X9 X10 X11 X12

X1: Opp. index 1

X2: New collar -.00 1
X3: Retail res. .02 .06 1
X4: Ind. divers. -.21 .13 -.10 1
X5: Unemp. -.13 .19 .04 -.23 1
X6: Earnings .07 -.13 -.03 .15 -.16 1
X7: Afford. -.03 .03 -.04 .10 -.10 -.12 1
X8: Commute -.32 -.02 .13 .08 .14 .41 -.31 1
X9: Doctors .18 -.07 -.10 .18 -.29 .43 -.16 .03 1
X10: Obesity -.31 .05 -.02 .20 .08 -.18 .44 -.04 -.11 1
X11: Walk. .30 .09 .09 .03 .02 .22 -.19 .15 .09 -.18 1
X12: Transit .24 .08 .06 .01 .01 .17 -.14 .14 .06 -.12 .91 1

The national distributions are helpful, too. We’ve included the average and standard deviation, as well
as the minimum and maximum which help interpret factor scores like 0 and 1.

Table 8. Means, minimums, and maximums

Factor Mean Standard deviation Minimum Maximum

Opp. index .552 .314 .138 3.21

New collar 21.4 4.6 10.9 39.2

Retail res. 13.6 9.33 2.62 123

Ind. divers. .837 .040 .646 .898

Unemp. 3.94 1.62 1.4 20.9

Earnings 43,417 6,168 29,310 80,134

Afford. 3.65 .625 2.07 6.09

Commute 22.8 3.6 14.7 36.7

Doctors .752 .221 .213 2.08

Obesity 30.5 3.0 19.0 40.8

Walk. 49.1 9.7 25.9 86.0

Transit 40.6 9.3 20.9 80.4

Sensitivity

We tried to create a fair and comprehensive index, but we might have picked a factor you didn’t like.
If you’re worried that one of these factors is distorting our rankings, we’ve included an “alternative
index” that excludes each factor, one by one. Take a look.

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