WalletHub ranked San Jose seventh as the best place to raise a family out of 182 U.S. cities surveyed. Four other California cities made the top 10, with Fremont ranking No. 1, Irvine at No. 3, San Diego at No. 8 and Huntington Beach at No. 10.
San Jose Spotlight reported the personal finance company looked at dozens of factors in five key areas -- family fun, health and safety, education and child care, affordability and socioeconomics -- in determining its ranking. San Jose received a total score of 63.88 out of 100 points when all factors were added up.
San Jose scored 10th in education and child care, which evaluated things like the quality of education, high school graduation rate and child-day care per capita. The city also scored 17th in health and safety and 15th in socioeconomics, which looked at factors including the percentage of two-parent families, unemployment rate and share of families living in poverty.
But when it came to affordability San Jose fell to 56th in the ranking.
San Jose's population has shrunk four percent to 971,000 residents in 2022, down from just over 1 million residents in 2020, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data.
A number of issues have caused this flight out of the city, including the lack of affordable housing, the ability to work remote post-pandemic and the overall high cost of living in the region.
