







The U.S. Social Progress Map is a data insight tool offering exclusive analysis of social and environmental performance across the United States for the 50 states, the 500 largest cities, and over 32,000 neighborhoods, with the option to expand to your community.
With more than 2.7 million data points, the U.S. Social Progress Map uses over 50 indicators to provide key data and insights on basic needs, education, safety, housing, and more.
According to the U.S. Social Progress Map, the top 10 highest-scoring states in overall quality of life are: Massachusetts (1st place), New Hampshire (2nd place), Minnesota (3rd place), Connecticut (4th), Maryland (5th), Colorado (6th), Virginia (7th), Utah (8th), Vermont (9th) and New Jersey (10th).
Explore how your state compares, see what’s driving these rankings, and find areas for improvement. Register for free.
Based on more than 50 indicators from the U.S. Social Progress Map, the top 10 highest-ranking cities for overall social progress are: San Ramon, CA (1st), Pleasanton, CA (2nd), Centennial, CO (3rd), Newton, MA (4th), Folsom, CA (5th), Plymouth, MN (6th), Carlsbad, CA (7th), Irvine, CA (8th), Bellevue, WA (9th), and Fremont, CA (10th).
These cities stand out for their performance in basic needs, wellbeing, and opportunity regardless of economic size.
Curious how your city ranks? Register for full access to explore scores for over 500 cities and 32,000 neighborhoods on the U.S. Map.
Wealth is not destiny. Across all income levels, some states are better than others in turning their wealth into social progress results. The richest US states (with the highest GDP) do a poor job of converting their resources into social progress. None of the five largest state economies in the country are in the top ten states on social progress. And three of these five don’t even crack the top 25 - Florida, Illinois and Texas.
To see the full chart, register for free.
U.S. cities with a Black majority (where over 50% of the population is African American or Black) tend to be poor and have low social progress.
95% have low median household income and 95% have a low social progress score.
While this may suggest that poverty and income are the barriers to social progress, in majority white, low income cities, 39% are high performers in social progress.
Texas has the second largest economy in the U.S., after California, and is the ninth largest in the entire world, yet it is failing when it comes to the wellbeing of its people, ranking just 46th/50 states.
Texas performs poorly in meeting basic human needs (49th), this is mainly down to poor dental health, as well as a high number of households who receive food stamp benefits, relative to the wealth of the state. Texas has a high number of people without health insurance and performs poorly in preventative healthcare, it also has a high number of people living with diabetes and a high teenage birth rate.
California cities dominate the Access to Information and Communication component, where 44% of the top 50 cities in this component are in the state of California.
In contrast, California performs poorly in meeting the basic human needs of its people. In particular when it comes to meeting nutrition and basic medical care and housing needs where the state ranks 49/50 in both of these areas.
The state is an example of technological development racing ahead, while the basic needs of its people are not being met.
Our work in the U.S. began by building tailored Social Progress Indexes for governments and partners, from California to Philadelphia, revealing the true state of over 9.2 million people. While we continue this tailored work to support leaders, we wanted to dream bigger.
What if everyone had access to this kind of insight? That’s what inspired us to create the U.S. Social Progress Map, a tool designed to open up over 2.7 million social progress data points and help more people champion change.
Social progress is a society's capacity to meet its citizens' basic human needs, establish the building blocks that allow citizens and communities to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives, and create the conditions for all individuals to reach their full potential.
At its core, it's about strengthening the pillars of a thriving society, where life, liberty, and happiness are within reach for all.
Learn more
Basic Human Needs: Nutrition & Basic Medical Care, Water & Sanitation, Shelter, Personal Safety.
Foundations of Wellbeing: Access to Basic Knowledge, Access to Information & Communications, Health & Wellness, Environmental Quality.
Opportunity: Personal Rights, Personal Freedom & Choice, Inclusiveness, Access to Advanced Education.
Get these features with your premium access:
Explore use cases to see how government and community partners have used customized data insight tools to drive impact change and informed decision making.