Cost of living by state
Every state gets called expensive or cheap. The label usually comes from one number, and that number hides what matters. In most states, the cost of living is really a story about rent. Housing swings enormously from one place to the next. Food, clothes and gas cost close to the same everywhere. So the states below are grouped by what actually drives the difference, not by which one is dearest.
Regional price parities are published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis as index values against a national base of one hundred, and decompose into housing, goods and other services. The all-items figure spans a narrow band across the jurisdictions; the housing component spans a range several times wider. Because shelter is non-tradable it absorbs local supply conditions that goods prices arbitrage away, so it carries most of the observed interstate dispersion. Grouping by that decomposition rather than by headline level separates states whose cost is concentrated in shelter — where exposure depends on tenure — from those where the price level is broad-based.
51 states
Expensive because of housing
Shelter sits much further above the national average than everything else does. Groceries and haircuts here are closer to ordinary than the headline figure suggests — it is rent doing the work.
| State | Prices overall | Housing |
|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | 10.8% | 68.54% |
| California | 12.58% | 57.84% |
| Colorado | 1.38% | 30.53% |
| New Jersey | 8.88% | 34.1% |
| Massachusetts | 8.24% | 30.13% |
| Hawaii | 8.61% | 28.89% |
| Florida | 3.45% | 23.06% |
| Washington | 8.56% | 25.51% |
| Nevada | -3.02% | 13.33% |
| Maryland | 3.96% | 19.88% |
| New York | 7.63% | 21.92% |
| Connecticut | 3.69% | 16.82% |
| Utah | -5% | 6.23% |
| New Hampshire | 5.34% | 14.62% |
| Arizona | 1.11% | 8.58% |
Affordable because of housing
The things you buy in a store cost close to what they cost anywhere. It is the roof that is cheap, and for most households the roof is the largest bill of all.
| State | Prices overall | Housing |
|---|---|---|
| Alaska | 1.71% | -3.36% |
| Illinois | -1.14% | -7.6% |
| Minnesota | -1.58% | -9.38% |
| Georgia | -3.3% | -11.75% |
| Pennsylvania | -2.5% | -14.21% |
| South Carolina | -6.82% | -19.53% |
| North Carolina | -5.86% | -19.16% |
| Montana | -9.76% | -23.26% |
| Vermont | -3.36% | -17.99% |
| Tennessee | -7.48% | -22.13% |
| Wisconsin | -6.9% | -21.72% |
| Wyoming | -9.15% | -24.08% |
| New Mexico | -9.61% | -24.74% |
| Michigan | -5.82% | -21.11% |
| Nebraska | -9.62% | -25.69% |
| Maine | -2.9% | -19.56% |
| North Dakota | -11.43% | -30.64% |
| Ohio | -8.19% | -27.92% |
| Indiana | -7.82% | -28.63% |
| Missouri | -8.24% | -29.57% |
| Kansas | -10.03% | -31.42% |
| Iowa | -11.23% | -34% |
| South Dakota | -11.9% | -35.13% |
| Louisiana | -11.66% | -34.91% |
| Oklahoma | -11.71% | -35% |
| Kentucky | -9.53% | -37.11% |
| Alabama | -10.03% | -38.44% |
| Arkansas | -13.49% | -43.33% |
| Mississippi | -12.71% | -45.1% |
| West Virginia | -10.23% | -43.87% |
Housing and everything else agree
The minority case. Shelter sits about as far from the national average as general prices do, so the overall figure describes renters and owners equally well.