What makes one job market more attractive than another can depend on a job-hunter’s financial and family circumstances, SmartAsset noted in a report released Tuesday.
Demand for different career paths and qualifications varies widely across the country, the report said, often depending on local geography, infrastructure, politics, culture and resources.
The presence of jobs and a high income in a specific market counts for those seeking to change career paths, but for many households, so do health insurance, the possibility for income growth, a short commute time and even full-time remote work.
To identify job markets that may be most suitable for households’ financial goals, SmartAsset considered 348 U.S. cities with populations of 100,000 or more with available data in the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey for 2023.
Researchers used six categories to evaluate different aspects of a city’s job market, giving half weighting to both commute time and remote work:
- Unemployment rate: Average for 2023
- Income-to-housing payment ratio: Median housing payments compared with median income to gauge relative quality of local incomes
- Commute time: For those not working from home, median minutes spent in transit to work
- Remote work: Percent of those working remotely
- Health care: Percent of workers with health insurance through their employer
- Income growth: Three-year growth in median income between 2020 and 2023
See the gallery for the 10 best American job markets in 2025, according to the study.
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