NerdWallet, a consumer advocacy website, puts Bellingham residents at number 9 in the nation when it comes to balancing work and play.
Thee website used data from the U.S. Census, looking at four categories to create the ranking. Looking at the data, Bellingham residents worked an average of 33.4 hours a week, had an average work commute time of 17.5 minutes, paid $866 a month in rent and had average annual full-time income of $41,117.
That gave Bellingham a score of 73.82, putting us in the top 10 out of 536 cities they looked at. At the top of the list was Bloomington, Ind. (79.40), followed by Provo, Utah (78.03), and Gainesville, Fla. (75.81).
Dale, Va.,was at the bottom of the list, as were six cities in California that were in the bottom 10. The towns at the bottom of the list had long commute times averaging around 40 minutes and rents about $1,500 a month.
“We have found university towns and towns with strong health care industries come up a lot on our lists,” said Divya Raghavan, an analyst for NerdWallet. She a;so said cities that have a lower cost of living did well, because it meant that people didn’t have to work extra hours to make ends meet.
For details, go to nerdwallet.com. You can find a link to the study by clicking this link.
NerdWallet’s top ten cities for work-life balance:
Bloomington, Ind.
Provo, Utah
Gainesville, Fla,
Eau Claire, Wisc.
Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Iowa City, Iowa
Colege Station, Texas
Eugene, Ore. Bellingham, WA
Kalamazoo, Mich.