Quality of Life Rating and How it Has Changed

Nearly 80 percent of the residents of Greater Kansas City rate their quality of life as good or excellent. This percentage falls to 70 percent for adults 35-44, to 60 percent for the unemployed and those earning less than $25,000 a year, and to just over 50 percent for blacks and those without a high school degree. It rises to 90 percent or above for those with high incomes (greater than $100,000 annually).

About half of the region's residents say their quality of life is better now than five years ago. Notably, blacks, Hispanics and Asians have seen improvements that rival or exceed that of whites. Young adults have seen substantially more improvement than older adults, as have males over females and the employed over the unemployed. Quality of life improvement is strongly correlated with income, less so with the level of education.