Seattle and Bellevue rank among the happiest cities in the US and here’s why

There’s just a bit over a week left of 2022, so let’s end it on a high note. Apparently that shouldn’t be so hard to do considering Seattle is one of the best places to spend Christmas and is now being recognized as one of the happiest places in the whole nation. Let’s check out the data from smartassest’s newest ranking.

Smartasset analyzed the 200 largest cities in the US, 164 of which had available data. They looked at 13 different metrics across three categories: personal finance, well-being and quality of life.

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They found that these cities are the top 10 happiest in the nation:

1. Sunnyvale, CA
2. Arlington, VA
3. Bellevue, WA
4. Fremont, CA
5. Frisco, TX
6. Plano, TX
7. Roseville, CA
8. San Jose, CA
9. Santa Clarita, CA
10. Irvine, CA

It may or may not be surprising that Bellevue beat out Seattle, which came in 15th place. Bellevue scores highest not only in the quality of life category but also for resident personal finances. In fact, roughly 61% of Bellevue’s residents earn $100,000 or more and less than 8% of the population lives below the poverty line.

Interestingly enough, this ranking found that the cost of living as a percent of income is the lowest across the study (28.69%). You can check out the full report here.