Paychecks go further in one Phoenix suburb than any U.S. city

Across much of the United States, just scraping by is becoming increasingly harder.

For years, wage growth has been slow to keep up with inflation. On top of that, President Donald Trump is diminishing trust in the economic system with his tariff regime and by firing the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner because he didn’t like the job numbers. In a recent poll, just 37% of Americans approved of the president’s handling of the economy — a figure that tends to be a better indication of how people feel about their own economic situation.

But in some cities, your money will take you further than in others, according to a recent analysis of America’s 100 largest cities by the personal finance site GOBankingRates. It used median household income and cost of living as the key data points to figure out where your paycheck goes the furthest, basically subtracting one from the other to determine how much income remains after expenses.

Two municipalities in the Phoenix metro area made the top three, and one East Valley city topped the list.

That would be Gilbert, which in recent decades has quietly grown from a rural and agricultural outpost of the Valley to one of the state’s largest cities, with a population of 275,000 people.

Gilbert’s top ranking on the list is owed to an extremely high median household income of more than $121,000. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that the town has seen an influx of luxurious new homes being built. Given the high median earnings and a slightly above-average cost of living at $65,500, the money left over from this basic calculation is the highest of any city in the country.

Chandler — an East Valley neighbor to Gilbert — isn’t far behind. While Plano, Texas, took the second spot with more than $48,000 in leftover funds, Chandler was ranked third.

With a median household income of more than $103,000 and an annual cost of living estimated at $62,000, Chandler residents, on average, can expect a leftover pile of $41,000. With about 280,000 residents, Chandler has mainly been a family-focused suburb of Phoenix for decades.

Both East Valley cities were also highly ranked in a national study of the best cities for first-time home buyers.

As the study notes, the annual cost of living in both places is higher than in many of the other cities on the list. So, for lower earners, living in Gilbert and Chandler won’t necessarily put you ahead. But as long as you’re cashing in on some of the relatively large paychecks being divvied out in both Gilbert and Chandler, odds are that you have things rolling pretty smoothly.

Here are the top 10 cities in GoBankingRates’ study.

10. Minneapolis
9. Fremont, California
8. Santa Clarita, California
7. Arlington, Virginia
6. Virginia Beach, Virginia
5. Anchorage, Alaska
4. Chesapeake, Virginia
3. Chandler
2. Plano, Texas
1. Gilbert