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Located in the heart of Silicon Valley and home to Apple and other high-tech companies, Cupertino attracts a diverse, educated crowd. How diverse? Only about 30% of residents are white (the biggest ethnicities are Asian and Asian Indian). How educated? More than 60% have a bachelor's degree or higher. And the city's primary and secondary schools rank among the highest performing in the state. The downside to living near all these brains? Job competition is stiff. --L.G.
Due to an error by our data provider, an earlier version listed incorrect stats for this city's number of colleges.
Places that score above 450 on the racial diversity index aren't necessarily diverse; rather, there may be a large population of one specific ethnic group. i.e. Hawaii has a very high racial diversity score because it has a high concentration of Pacific Islanders.
(I) Income tax notes:
17 states have statutory provision for automatically adjusting to the rate of inflation the dollar values of the income tax brackets, standard deductions, and/or personal exemptions. Massachusetts, Michigan, and Nebraska index the personal exemption only. Oregon does not index the income brackets for $125,000 and over. Because the inflation adjustments for 2012 are not yet available in some cases, the table may report the 2011 amounts. For joint returns, taxes are twice the tax on half the couple’s income. The personal exemption takes the form of a tax credit instead of a deduction. California imposes an additional 1% tax on taxable income over $1 million, making the maximum rate 10.3% over $1 million.
(II) Sales tax notes:
California (1%) and Virginia (1%) levy mandatory, statewide add-on sales taxes at the local level; these are included in their state sales tax rates.
Using statistics from data services company Onboard Informatics, we crunched the numbers in order to zero in on America's best small cities for families. (Last year, we looked at small towns, with populations between 8,500 and 50,000.)
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