East Grand Rapids, Michigan

Unemployment of 4.2% is lower than 55% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 7.4% over the past year, to 324,616 employed residents.

80% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 98% of measured US cities.

Household income is higher than at least 97% of measured US cities.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Kent County, MI, which contains this city.

Prices for everything a household buys run about 5% below the national average, on the Bureau of Economic Analysis index. Housing drives most of that difference.

Median rent of $1,862 takes 13% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.1 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

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.

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 83°F and January a low of 19°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 39.4 inches, including 77.6 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 51, in the Moderate band, and one day a year passes 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

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. Air quality is measured rather than modelled, by EPA monitors, and published by county only where a monitor sits — roughly half the counties AreaProfile publishes have one, and the rest show nothing rather than an estimate. Air masses are regional, so a county reading describes the air over a place reasonably well, but it is still the county reading.

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.

Taxes

Taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Cost of living now is — the index above is the Bureau of Economic Analysis price parity for this area — but it is a price level for all consumption rather than a budget for a household, its spread is driven mostly by housing, and it excludes taxes. Housing affordability is computed separately from rent, price and income, because that answers a narrower and more actionable question. Nothing here is individualised tax advice.

Anything about a specific address

Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house. School attendance zones, insurance pricing and the character of a neighbourhood all vary within the places measured here.

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

Put East Grand Rapids side by side with a similar place.

Profile recalculated August 30, 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.