BALTIMORE, MD—With October being National Disability Employment Awareness Month and the average monthly Social Security disability benefit at only $1,350, barely enough to keep an individual out of poverty, the personal-finance website WalletHub this week released its report on 2023’s Best & Worst Cities for People with Disabilities.

Columbia, MD came in at No. 7 on the list.  Scottsdale, AZ was ranked at No. 1 and Denver, CO came in a No. 2.

In order to ease the process of finding the best place to live while managing a disability, WalletHub compared more than 180 U.S. cities across 33 key indicators of disability-friendliness.

The data set ranges from wheelchair-accessible facilities per capita to the rate of workers with disabilities to the quality of the public hospital system.

Best vs. Worst

• Lewiston, Maine, has the highest share of people with disabilities living in the area, 21.00 percent, which is 3.8 times higher than in Irvine, California, the city with the lowest at 5.60 percent.
• Overland Park, Kansas, has the lowest share of people with disabilities living in poverty, 8.15 percent, which is 5.2 times lower than in Rochester, New York, the city with the highest at 42.44 percent.
• Brownsville, Texas, has the lowest median annual cost of in-home services, $34,320, which is 2.7 times lower than in Bismarck, North Dakota, the city with the highest at $93,877.
• Fremont, California, has the highest median annual earnings for people with disabilities, $48,653, which is 6.6 times higher than in Burlington, Vermont, the city with the lowest at $7,398.

The full report can be viewed online here at WalletHub.

More in the video below.

Photo via Pixabay