The 25 US cities where a middle-class American salary goes furthest

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Midwest cities and capital cities are some of the best places to live in on the typical American salary - Des Moines, Iowa, is both.

• The median household in America earns $55,000 a year, which can go far depending on where you live.
• SmartAsset recently released a list of the best places to live on a $55,000 salary.
• Some of the best places to live on the typical American salary are located in the Midwest or are capital cities.

How far your paycheck can really go is often dependent on your geography.

A $55,000 salary - what the median American family earns, according to SmartAsset, citing US Census Bureau data from the 2016 American Community Survey 5-year estimates - may not get you very far in a big city with a high cost of living like New York or San Francisco. But it could stretch for miles elsewhere.

SmartAsset recently released a list of the best places to live on $55,000 a year. To determine this list, it found the cities with a median household income range of $50,000 to $60,000 - 126 cities, to be exact. It then ranked each city based on nine metrics with equal ranking, which it then averaged. This was the foundation for the final score.

Turns out, some of the best places to live on the typical American salary are located in the Midwest - four of the top 10 cities are located in this region. Capital cities also take up four of the top 10 spots; they have strong economies thanks to state government employment opportunities, according to SmartAsset.

Below, see the top 25 places to live in the US on the typical American salary.