Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA

Unemployment of 5.0% is lower than 22% of the 379 measured US metros.

Employment fell 1.1% over the past year, to 2,181,146 employed residents.

47% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 96% of measured US metros.

Household income is higher than at least 99% of measured US metros.

Median rent of $2,000 takes 21% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 6.2 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Population has grown 3% since 2020, reaching 4,145,494 in 2024.

65% of recently permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes, so new supply is concentrated in apartments and condominiums rather than detached houses.

At 5.2 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US metros.

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 77°F and January a low of 37°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 34.7 inches.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today.

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are earthquake, heat wave and landslide.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. This value is the population-weighted mean of all component counties; expected annual loss is their sum. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Crime

The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source with national coverage and a published method, and it requires an API key AreaProfile does not hold. Arrest counts, news volume and commercial “safety scores” are not substituted in the meantime. Reported crime is also easy to misread: agency participation varies year to year, and a city that draws a large daytime workforce carries incidents its residents did not generate.

Taxes

No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, transparent methodology and update cadence. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.

Full cost of living

No public source publishes one with national coverage and a documented method. Housing affordability above is computed from published rent, price and income, and excludes transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes — commuting cost in particular tends to offset suburban housing savings.

2 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 22 miles away.

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

Put Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue side by side with a similar place.

Profile recalculated August 29, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.